Hello everyone, and welcome back to the AFLM blog family for what is sure to be an exhilarating new year of activity. Man, where to start? I think it has been a whole month you have been without my (insert adjective of your choosing) writing to help you make sense of your maudlin, lurid, art driven thoughts. Rest assured, no matter how much you missed me, it was a necessary break. My writing has been known to cause lethal levels of arrogance, pompousness, and intellectual superiority in some readers, some of whom are recovering only through the miracle of psychiatric dialysis.
Over the winter holiday break, I thought extensively about what I wanted to achieve with my blogs to all you kind folk, and I came up with this list. Let's hope I keep this new years resolution . . . unlike the disappointing flannel fiasco of 2010 (like it was even a possibility it could be eliminated from my wardrobe)
1. Concision - Let's face it, who has the time to sit down and read a wall of text Roger Water's himself couldn't tear down! So, I have decided to streamline my blogs so that they will be more accessible to the reader who is pressed for time but who would still like to be up to date on AFLM goings on. (This will be implemented next time, this one still might be on the long side)
2. Reciprocation - I have said this on several blogs, but its worth saying again. All of us here at AFLM are here for YOU, the reader. We blog so that we can stay in contact with the readers and find out their thoughts, expressions, worries, struggles, triumphs, etc. with writing, after all this is a literary magazine. So, in the words of Morrissey, please please please comment. Contribute to the discourse of like-minded literary scholars.
3. Sociability - I have talked to several editors and bloggers here at AFLM, and we all agree that we want to be a bit more interactive with our community of readers and contributors. This means workshops, forums, and face to face interaction with all of you (that is assuming you are local-ish . . . sorry folks, as much as I would love to visit you in Brazil, India, France, etc. its a bit of a stretch) Also, anyone who is interested, we will be hosting poetry readings (don't worry you can read prose too) far more frequently than we have before, that means more time with anyone who is willing to step into the limelight.
There you have it, my bond as a gentleman from me to all of you out there to try and become an even better blogger and editor for all of you. I will leave you with this thought. . .
who here has seen English majors walking around with journals or scraps of paper that they seem to be feverishly writing in as if they are penning the next masterpiece? I'm guilty of it, I'm sure some of you are as well, BUT how do you find yourself taking those loose ideas and formulating them into a well structured piece? It must be done, but how can it be done effectively, a way which allows these ideas to become polished without sucking all the excitement and life out of their spontaneous conception? Think about it, let me know, because I would love to know.
Wishfully,
Eric W. Strege
I take those scraps and burn them in front of my James Joyce shrine as the snow outside falls upon all the living and the dead.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to contemplate the scraps among the clouds in the midst of time . . . just my personal preference.
ReplyDelete