Much of my writing tends to dance around general questions about place and, more specifically, about home — is it possible to find a home? What would that place actually look like?
And as a place-centered writer, I’ve always considered myself to be a southern writer; genus Texas-Georgia hybrid. Because of that, I’m particularly pleased that my story The Sailor’s Horn-Book for the Law of Storms is in Crab Orchard Review’s current special issue, Old and New: Re-Visions of the American South. 245 pages; southern-fried! Single copies of the magazine can be purchased here.
And a plug: Crab Orchard Review is a class act. Galleys, professional editing, thoughtful communications with authors, decent pay to contributors. Yep, we all know the writing business is in flux. But I hope hard-copy journals like this can continue to exist as publishing figures out what it wants to be in the 21st century.
At the same time, the online world ain’t all bad. A while back, I was contacted by the assistant editor at an online journal interested in reprinting a poem of mine. The journal is Places: Design Observer; my poem isn’t “up” yet, but Places — an interdisciplinary journal of contemporary architecture, landscape and urbanism, with particular emphasis on the public realm as physical place and social ideal — is including outstanding prose and poetry along with great essays and photographs. Their August series of short stories in which landscapes are central to mood and meaning included some amazing writing (and I should have posted this at the beginning of August, not in September). Barry Lopez, Anthony Doerr, Emily MItchell — great stuff. Place’s clean, crisp design and quality content are a delight.
Katherine L. Hester 