Welcome indeed to the 35th anniversary issue of GHLL. As always, you will find both newcomers and old friends between these digital covers — people who do not regard themselves as primarily writers, and others trailing long lists of publications.
We lead with several recently-discovered, previously unpublished poems by our longtime friend, the late Jim Thomas. First time authors include poet Christy Frushour, and among our reviewers, the recent Truman State graduate Sarah White. Gerry Galuardi, who refuses to describe himself as “retired,” honors us with his very first, and obviously successful submission. He thinks of himself as a singer-songwriter, like Judy Domeny Bowen (who is actually primarily a goat farmer, and occasional auctioneer).
The issue pays special attention to a storyteller we featured in Volume XXXIV, Rin Kelly, whose untimely death deprived the world of a great talent; in addition to reviewing her posthumous collection of short fiction, we present a contextualizing essay by Sarah Mohler, a scholar of New Fabulism.
Although we remain the Green Hills Literary Lantern, with a special focus on the American Heartland, we long ago expanded our horizons (using the image rather literally) and in this issue we include translations by Thomas Feeny of two tales by Emilia Pardo Bazán (accompanied by the original Spanish) and also work by Karineh Arutyunova (translated by Lena Mandel), in this case with not only the author’s original text but the artist-author’s illustrations.
As always, we are honored by return appearances of old friends and elders of the craft. Both Terry Godbey and Richard Dinges have graced our pages with their poetry over the years, and Timothy Reilly has his third story in this issue. Gary Fincke has often appeared here. Another very senior writer, E.G. Silverman, notes that one of his earliest publications found his work in an issue with Gary, and he seemed pleased at the virtual reunion.
The most senior of senior statesmen here: our founding editor, Jack Smith, reviews the latest by one of our longtime contributors and collaborators, DeWitt Henry, founding editor of Ploughshares.
Lastly, the managing editor of this journal reviews Joe Benevento’s latest novel, My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son. Because I would trust the assignment to no one else.
And now, a bittersweet announcement. From today’s launch, we begin reviewing submissions for the final issue of GHLL, due out July 1, 2025.
As Joe Benevento and I agreed when reaching this decision: “we had a good run.” For me, it will have been a full twenty years, and for Joe, even longer. A year ago, he retired from a long and distinguished teaching career, and most graciously agreed to continue to edit poetry for a year or two, but made it clear he was ready to move on. About that time, I quite suddenly acquired a new aorta (well, it was second-hand, actually) and began thinking about whether I too needed to plot a new course. There was no obvious way to hand the journal on, and frankly, there is little realistic business model for literary magazines. All around the country, universities are recalibrating priorities, and the honorable quarterly or annual review doesn’t usually make the cut. Arts and Humanities grants can be thought of like the Colorado River, once broad, generously flowing, now hugely reduced, and even that residuum overtaxed, trickling to nothing in a desert. We survived the loss of our funding in the early aughts by shifting to digital production, and relying entirely on volunteer labor, but as the decline in journalism shows, that’s not sustainable. People will go on writing, of course, but a vast ecology that nourished and nurtured and developed talent has succumbed to the commercial and cultural equivalent of climate change, and it’s not coming back.
I have every confidence that literary life will go on, as life always does. Because writers have to write.The next phase simply will not look much like the last. Consolidation of publishers will play a role. Monetization of eyeballs and clicks. And of course, AI. And the pushing of serious work to the fringes of mass commerce may be no bad thing. As a folklorist, I know that the edges are always where the interesting things are happening.
See you there.
ABD, Kirksville, July 1, 2024