Last year sometime I saw an online discussion about editors who were tired of seeing stories where writers (or English professors) were the main characters. Boring, many editors said. Although I agree to an extent, even the most tired of subjects and material can become fresh in the right hands. (The funny thing is that many beginning writers are told to “write what you know” and yet often what you know is what all other writers know—that is, what it’s like to be a writer.)
Still, if you’re going to write a story about being a writer, you better make it damn good. We get a ton of those in our submission box, and unless it is a real stand-out, we’ll probably pass. Unless of course you are Ian Sanquist and you send us “From ‘The Game of Surrounding,’” which is a fabulously fun musing on what it’s like to be a poet.
However, our staff tends to get excited when we find stories about people who probably wouldn’t write stories or poems, or wouldn’t think that anyone would care to read a story about their lives. In this issue in particular, I think we’ve got some of those voices. From the graffiti artists in Brian Mihok’s “Fire Egg” to the valet parking garage attendants in Josh Denslow’s “Everyone Continued to Sing,” many of the stories in this issue highlight people and situations that I feel many people, in their everyday lives, walk right by without noticing. Isaac Boone Davis does a beautiful job of capturing a happy moment in an otherwise tragic life in “I Don’t Know Who Used to Live Here, but No One Lives Here Now.” And Jo Gatford, in “Lacrimosa,” paints a portrait of a town’s fixture, a lonely sailor who meanders through life but touches people in a unique way.
So, as always, we present to you with pride our newest issue of SmokeLong Quarterly. Explore, enjoy, and share!
Thanks for reading.