Plenty of art has and will be made about the era of Covid-19. But some artists seemingly saw this plague year coming long before it arrived. Their films and novels seemed to foreshadow what life over the past year would be like: Quarantine. Social distancing. Feeling like you want to sleep through it all. Feeling like you’re stuck in a time loop. The fear of infection. The spread of misinformation. The politicization of public health. And much, much more.

To mark the one-year anniversary of lockdowns in the US, and the American death toll having crossed half a million and counting, I talked to seven of those artists — “plague prophets,” as I came to think of them. I wanted to hear about what crossed their minds when the pandemic hit, what they’ve learned in the past year, and what they’re thinking now. Like so many others, they’re sorting through unexpected resistance to mitigation efforts, what they’ve done to survive, and the disastrous consequences of misinformation. In their thoughts I hear echoes of my own — along with some hope for the future, if only we can pay attention.