Dear Reader,
Over the last month, I've read many of the "best books of the year" and "best books of the decade" lists that countless magazines and blogs and newspapers have unleashed upon the internet. While reading these lists, it occurred to how wide the range of what might constitute good or great literature really is. (For examples, compare this list with this list with this list with all the other lists collected in one spot at Largehearted Boy.) There's not that much crossover between individual lists, and I would suggest that this is a great thing for readers and writers and publishers. That there are so many possibilities for what's "best" means each of us has a good chance of eventually finding the stories and poems and essays and books that will speak most directly to us.
As much as I enjoy these yearly kinds of lists and the debates that inevitably follow, I would suggest that if you find yourself loving a piece of writing maybe you don't wait to tell someone until the end of the year, the end of the decade, the end of the century. I'm not one of those people who thinks that literature is endangered or needs to be "saved," but I do think it could be attracting more readers than it currently is, and I do think people who are not now readers of contemporary literature could be, if they were exposed to its best examples more regularly. There's so much smart and enjoyable and heart-felt work being written and published today, and a huge part of the public—even the reading public—seems completely unaware of it. Whose fault is that? Is it theirs, as is so commonly suggested, or is it ours, the people who already know how great contemporary writing can be?
There are always doomsday predictions about the "end of publishing," and there are always new innovations that are meant to save it, but I think I can safely say that literature is in no danger of disappearing, and also that it's not the technology of reading that keeps people from spending their free time doing so. In my mind, the main way to continue to grow literature is for readers to keep promoting and sharing the work they love, in the hope that their friends and family and colleagues will get as much enjoyment out of it as they have.
To that end, I hope that if you read something in The Collagist that you like that you'll then tell someone else about it so that they can share in the reading experience you had here. Obviously, I encourage you to do that not just when reading here, but everywhere else too. In fact, if you read a new story or poem or essay or book you really enjoy, please tell me what it was and why you liked it at editor@thecollagist.com, along with a link, if you have one. I get enough people sending in "tips" of reading they did elsewhere then I'll start a Reader Recommendation column on our blog to share those links with our other readers. Maybe we can start the conversation about what we liked best about this year's reading right now, and so enjoy it all year long together.
In our first issue of 2010, we've got new fiction by Tina May Hall, Alan Michael Parker, Gabe Durham, and Gabriel Blackwell, as well as a novel excerpt from Louis Paul Boon's My Little War, which is out this month from Dalkey Archive Press, an essay from Jennifer S. Cheng, and poetry by Mary Jo Firth Gillett, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Emily Kendal Frey, and Doug Ramspeck.
In this month's book review section, we've got coverage of My Bird by Fariba Vafi, The Complete Collection of people, places, & things by John Dermot Woods, Normal People Don't Live Like This by Dylan Landis, and Ever by Blake Butler.
Finally, we've also got the third occurrence of our Classic Reprint series in Padgett Powell's story "Scarliotti and the Sinkhole," introduced by Dzanc author Jeff Parker, one of his former students. I encourage you to read the essay and the story together, as it's our hope that Jeff's introduction will bring further enjoyment to what's already a great story.
As always, thanks to all of our contributors for letting us publish their fine work. Thanks also to everyone who reads the magazine, everyone who sends us submissions, and of course everyone who takes the time to post about the issue to their blogs, Facebook, or anywhere else. We really appreciate your time and talents, and can't thank you enough for sharing them with us.
Sincerely,
Matt Bell
Editor
The Collagist
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