What's In It For Me?

There have been two or three publishing agreements waiting for me each day when I return home from work, and it's been great fun seeing our next issue gradually coming together.

One contributor sent these orange slices along with the agreement, and I must say it was a sweet surprise. I'm pretty sure Heather's health-conscious diet doesn't include allotments for items with modified food starch, yellow#6 and red#40. So these sucrose-laden babies are all for me.

I want to make it clear, lest foetry.com gets a whiff of this: I do not take bribes. I will not publish the work of just anyone who sends me sugar. But I admit I'm always looking to new writing for what it can give me. I want to walk away from a story knowing something different about how people think and act and work. Ellen Bryant Voigt once explained to me that stories show us all the ways we're different and poems show us all the ways we're alike. Yes, teach me that.

I've eaten a few too many of these tonight, and I probably won't be able to sleep. Good writing does that to me too. That's why I love doing this. That's why I hope you'll keep reading. I'm excited about our forthcoming writers. Stay tuned. Let us surprise you.

Stephanie