The infancy of Stoneboat 1.2

Last night the Stoneboat editors met at Lisa's house to discuss submissions. While Lisa and Jim were in the kitchen attending to our traditional meal of beer and pizza, Rob and I found ourselves standing around the living room. It was my first time in Lisa's house. Her furniture matched. The walls were decorated with framed art. There was no clutter. It smelled good. I was impressed-- my house still has the aura of a graduate student's abode rather than a professor's.

Happy Thanksgiving from Stoneboat!

We at Stoneboat have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. We managed to turn a notion into a literary journal. We were fortunate enough to have the guidance of someone who knew what he was doing. We had the honor of reading incredible work and working with incredible people (each other, sure, but also our contributors). And along the way, we made some new friends. That's a pretty impressive -- and humbling -- "things to be thankful for" list, by my standards at least.

Report from the Inaugural Reading

[[Submission guidelines and subscription info can be found here]]

Last night, 14 of the 16 contributors to Stoneboat were present and read their work at Paradigm Coffee and Music (and now, Poetry!) in Sheboygan. The place was packed, many journals were sold, we had a nice response from friends both old and new. The excitement continues today as two of our contributors, Shannon Kring Buset and Michael Kriesel, will lead the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland College. These two will do a reading in the morning, mainly for the student body, workshops during the afternoon that are open to the public, and then this evening, a reading in the Pub, also open to the wider community. Tomorrow is a day for high school students to work with these talented and experienced writers. Meanwhile, the Stoneboat is afloat! Thank you everyone (co-editors, contributors, readers, and assorted mentors and guides) who are making this phenomenon possible. Carrying on...

[[Submission guidelines and subscription info can be found here]]

Submission Guidelines & Subscription Information

Submissions

Stoneboat 1.1 is back from the printers...which means that the editors are already looking ahead to the spring issue. We will be accepting submissions through January 15, 2011.

Inaugural Reading at Paradigm

[[[Submission guidelines and subscription info are available here.]]]

I'm pleased to say that on Wednesday, November 3 at 7:00 p.m., nearly every contributor to the first Stoneboat will be on hand at Paradigm Coffee and Music in Sheboygan to read a selection from the inaugural issue. Please join us! We open for a singer-songerwriter from Tucson named Namoli Brennett. The music begins at about 8:00 p.m. I am anticipating a great evening of word and music, right here in our own backyard!

The Stoneboat readers are: Gerry Bertsch, Bonnie Dickman, Jim Giese, Maryann Hurtt, Michael Kriesel, Shannon Kring Buset, Emilie Lindemann, Rob Pockat, Sylvester Regan, Georgia Ressmeyer, Anna Woehlke, Marilyn Zelke-Windau, and me, Lisa Vihos. We will be missing the physical presence of Philip Dacey and Signe Jorgenson, but they will be with us in spirit, I am quite sure of it. Our fearless guide and source of endless inspiration, Karl Elder, will join us if his schedule permits.

I am investigating whether or not I can record the reading and post it here on this blog. So stay tuned. Even if you live far away, you may still be able to participate in the audio celebration of our new baby.

[[[Submission guidelines and subscription info are available here.]]]

It's Coming

Fall arrived overnight in our little corner of the world. One day it was eighty-five degrees and the beaches at Deland Park and King Park were crowded with kids enjoying their last few days of summer vacation, and the next day -- literally the next day -- it was sixty degrees, rainy, and windy, and the beaches were deserted. All afternoon, the "A Rather Blustery Day" song from Winnie the Pooh played itself in my head.

On Getting Lost [in a book]

It's been ages since I last got lost in a book. There are only a handful of novels that have so thoroughly and completely transported me to another place, another time, another life: The World According to Garp, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Virgin Suicides, The Secret Garden, The Hours*.

Letters to Strangers

Letter from a Stranger
for Thomas James

Who emptied your wine on cold winter day?
Jason in the garden one fog-smeared morn?
Perhaps the broken sirens of mongrels
Shaken into madness did seal your fate
While colors of innocence dripped decay.

The world masked you in anemic thistle’s
Trapped reflections—final turn of the screw.
Your body holding shape, genius intact,
Out of your mind, thoughts of darkness would pour.
In painted box a precious object shut.

An hour, a day, a January more
Inside you I have lived in keen darkness
Feeling the slow slug crawl through gray matter.
It is a stranger who has poured your flask,
But lonely stranger to You I am not.

How to move a stone--or anything else heavily weighing

1. Find your stones: Seems pretty simple, you have something to move, a couch, an armoire, a futon, a cat, your in-laws, or maybe just some words--these are usually dug in pretty tight, but get them out; you'll feel better. What does one do with a field full of words?

In the beginning was the word

I've wanted to start a literary journal for quite some time now, but it never seemed to be within the realm of possibility. A journal doesn't just rise up out of nowhere; it takes vision, it takes time, it takes connections, it takes money. I, unfortunately, am lacking in just about all of those areas. And so I relegated "start a journal" to the dusty "things to do when I retire or win the lottery" repository in the back of my brain, along with pipe dreams like "open a book store/coffee house in Door County." Never mind that I don't drink coffee--that's not the point...or maybe that's exactly the point: it's a list of the unlikely. Don't we all keep a mental tally of the things we say we'd like to do but don't ever expect to achieve?