The Red Queen understood evolution before biologists did and at Modernism/modernity we are now convinced that she probably also understood academic publishing. After many years, finally, we are catching up to the calendar and publishing the September issue in September (even if the print issue will reach your mailboxes rather later). Like most journals, we have been living in two times at once these past few years. The first is the slow time of scholarship that involves peer review, revision, citation checking, proofs, all of it sometimes much too slow for the comfort of all involved. The other is the calendar time that marks the cycle of publication. Miraculously, the two are aligned now, and we can look forward to tracking the future conversations of our field.