I remember the first time I experienced the mind of micha cárdenas.

She was keynoteing the Allied Media Conference in Detroit several years ago, discussing a project that involved setting up water stations throughout the desert grounds of our southern border. This direct action supported the survival of migrants running towards life through militias and border control agents hunting them. In my memory, she wore a red dress and had red lips, and I thought, “This trans-Latina femme is the future.”

A few years later, I talked with micha about another project she was working on—converting old tires into affordable bulletproof vests for communities targeted by police. Again, I was thrilled by how her mind worked, looking past the stuck places of our oppressed conditions, looking for solutions with the things that we have available to us.

Whether watching micha dance, perform, read poems, or innovate technology, I never fail to be expanded by the range of her imagination and how it is always rooted in her rigorous self-examination and willingness to grow and change to make more possible.

When I learned she was writing fiction, I knew that I was a future fan. Atoms Never Touch, the novel you hold in your hands, is beyond my wildest dreams—an original work

of micha cárdenas fiction as part of the Emergent Strategy Series! A work of alternate universes and love between trans women, a remarkably tender story of abolition and antifascism, a work that satisfies and plants seeds for wanting more.

I’m so grateful micha trusted us with this novel. She is letting us see how many worlds coexist in any given moment; she is showing us how we are the portals to futures where we can be loved and held and trusted with the gifts of our own lives.

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