Dear Reader,
Hello! It's been a little while since we ran one of these letters, but this is a special issue, and we have some news.
Our poetry editor Marielle Prince sends this note:
For the second year running, The Collagist is celebrating National Poetry Month by sending the April issue into the classroom. We believe that exposing students to contemporary voices is essential, and it doesn’t get any more contemporary than these just-published works! Each of the poems in Issue Ninety-Six comes with a lesson plan complete with discussion questions, a writing prompt, and related reading you can find in The Collagist archives. These lessons are intended for introductory audiences, high school or college, and encourage students to develop diverse methods of encountering and generating poems.
As we consider making this an annual feature, we would love to hear from any of you who give these lessons a try. Tweet us @TheCollagist or email poetry@thecollagist.com to let us know how it goes!
Finally, a friendly reminder: When copying poems from the site for classroom use, we would appreciate it if you could include a note saying the poems were found in The Collagist, Issue 96.
(Also for the second year running, Marielle and our interviews editor Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes put together the lesson plans.)
The news: We're welcoming two new fiction editors to the team with this issue, Emily Alex and Andrew Farkas. We are incredibly fortunate to have them on the staff. Welcome, Emily and Andrew!
Unfortunately, we are also saying goodbye to Associate Editor Samantha Nelson, who helped copy-edit this issue. She has done an amazing job of everything I've asked her to do during her time at the magazine and will be missed. Thanks, Samantha!
And you, reader, also deserve our thanks, for your support of The Collagist. We are grateful.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Gabriel Blackwell