Dear Reader,
In its first eighty-seven issues, The Collagist has run novel excerpts, excerpts from book-length nonfiction, excerpts from poetry collections and chapbooks, video reviews, creative audio, and reprints of classic stories. Though we usually publish four pieces of fiction and the work of four poets in each issue, there have been months where we've run five stories, thirteen stories, work from as many as ten poets. We've run as few as three book reviews in an issue and as many as eight. We've had guest editors of our fiction and poetry. We've had special poetry sections to celebrate National Poetry Month and we've published roundtable discussions and panels. We even had a podcast at one time. In all of those eighty-seven issues, one thing has remained constant: A new issue of The Collagist on the 15th of the month, every month.
Next month, though, there won't be an Issue Eighty-Eight. Starting with this month's issue, The Collagist will be bi-monthly, meaning you can expect a new issue of the magazine once every two months. Though we'll be publishing fewer issues, those issues will be bigger, so there will still be plenty to read and enjoy. Our hope is that, with a little more time between issues, you'll do just that: read and enjoy.
Fortunately, then, there's plenty here to enjoy. This month's fiction was selected by our guest editor, Jacob S. Knabb. When Jacob told me he wanted to guest edit an issue, I asked him to come up with some sort of special focus, something that would reflect his interests as an artist, editor, and reader. His response was almost instantaneous: "death and dying," he said. His take on death and dying—that is, the takes of the five writers he's chosen—isn't the expected one. Some are melancholy tales of loss, but others are stories of change, and sometimes that change is resisted, and other times it is celebrated.
This is completely appropriate, of course, because those competing attitudes toward change, sometimes manifested as an ambivalence toward change, run throughout the issue. There is one exception, though, and that is this letter and the news contained within it. We look forward to the changes ahead, look forward, also, to giving our contributors an extra month to shine in the spotlight, and to giving you, our readers, a bit more time to savor their words.
With gratitude, as always, to all of our contributors and to you, our readers,
Gabriel Blackwell