Heartfully

   by Connie Martin, Editor

    For many years on a bulletin board in my office, I’ve had a photo of me working at my desk, books piled, papers scattered, computer glaring, and me staring into the task at hand. One of the kids must have snapped it when they’d had enough of me showering attention on poetry and stuff.
I posted it to remind me whenever I thought about quitting how truly happy I was to edit and publish these little literary books. To have a project in progress, looking forward to next season’s issue, wondering what life would hold in between.

The photo proved I was in the thick of things, the heat of the battle, desk cluttered, sifting, sorting through, stiff neck, finding just the right poem for just the right page, wondering if I could pull it all together. Communicating with writers hungry for poems in print. Proofreading. Pondering. Procrastinating. Low toner flashing. Computer crashing. Feeling very low. Feeling very high. Finishing touches. Printing, folding, stapling, stuffing envelopes, licking, sticking, stamping. Stomping up and down the stairs! Hurrying to the postoffice, rushing off the new edition. Getting it out. Getting it done.

Twenty-Three Years! with the latest Fall 2009 edition of HEART. Well over 30,000 copies. Somewhere sitting on someone’s shelf, by a chair, or tucked away in a box. In a library, or a landfill. That’s ok, I did my part. I sold some, gave more away. That’s ok too. I cast my bread on the waters. The tide goes out, but washes back countless treasures.

I had seriously planned, even announced, hanging it all up with the Fall 2009 edition. Seriously? I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just know I am not done. I would like to devote more time to Nostalgia’s website and the curious world of E-publishing. But I somehow can’t abandon the books. At least one issue a year. And the next time I decide to quit, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’ll just quietly fade.

But even when I cease publishing, there will always be the poems and the stories I launched in print, over $10,000 paid to writers, thousands of contacts on my mail list...and that crazy cluttered picture.

Don’t be a stranger. Please visit this site occasionally. Be patient, I’m still learning how to manage it. And, order a book sometimes. That would be great.

Thanks!

Connie Lakey Martin, Editor