Changes in Stoneboat Land

If you follow this blog, or our Twitter or Facebook accounts, you may have noticed that lately there's been some radio silence on the Stoneboat front. We're going through some big changes, both personally and journal-wise, and those changes have slowed us down a bit. For the first time in Stoneboat history, we are going to have to push back an issue release date.  Ordinarily, our fall issues come out October 15th.  This time, though, we're shooting for November 1st.

Let me explain...


First off, Jim moved to Missoula in August to begin graduate school at the University of Montana. He's studying environmental writing and teaching a few classes. That has been an adjustment for all of us. Jim's still an active member of the team, but he's attending meetings via Skype and communicating via email. This means that Jim isn't whipping up feasts for our editorial meetings anymore -- we're back to the beer-and-pizza routine from the early days. More importantly, it also means that he's got to juggle Stoneboat with some pretty intense academic work. Anyone who has been to grad school, and especially anyone who had a teaching assistantship during grad school, knows that the adjustment is a big one and the first semester is insane.  We're just happy that Jim is still doing our beautiful layout from afar, so we're OK with cutting him some slack.  That's Change Number One.

Change Number Two is that we're switching to perfect binding by publishing through Amazon's Create Space.  We like the other Create Space publications we've seen, and we're really excited that Stoneboat will no longer have staples in its spine.  The journal will be even more sleek and professional than it already is.  It's a brand new process, though, and learning it is taking some time.

And Change Number Three is tangential, but still a big factor in our delayed release.  Lisa, Rob, and I are all employed by Lakeland College, and the institution is going through a great period of change right now.  LC is about to inaugurate a new president, so things are in flux around here and we're all keeping quite busy at work.  That might not be a good excuse for having to push back an issue release, but it's the truth. Lakeland is our livelihood, and without livelihood, we wouldn't have any money to put into the journal, so our work at Lakeland has to take priority over our work for Stoneboat.

Rest assured, we are still fully committed to our journal.  In fact, it's because we're committed that we've decided to push the release back.  We're proud of what we do, so we don't want to rush and put out an issue that isn't up to our high standards.  We've decided to give ourselves the time to do it right. We promise, it's coming.  It's going to be good, too -- three amazing short stories, lots of great poems, a photo by a sixteen-year-old photographer whose work is on the cover of the current issue of Carolina Quarterly, and our first-ever photo essay.  Stay tuned.  And hey...subscribe to ensure that you get your copy the instant it's ready.

And in the meantime, get your literary fix this weekend via 100,000 Poets for Change.  There are events happening throughout the world, so no matter where you are, there is a way to celebrate. Our very own Lisa Vihos has helped to organize the Sheboygan events, one of which involves Editor in Chief Rob Pockat participating in Karl Elder's reading of The Houdini Monologues at Mead Public Library (12 p.m. on Saturday, Sep. 29th).