Editor's Note for the Winter/Fall 2003 Issue

One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.
~Oscar Wilde

If Wilde were alive today, he might relish the stories created within these pages. He would feel the tenderness and irony in poems like “Mediterranean” and “Ghazal of Jorge Garcia.” He would notice his own short lifeline as Meryl looks for one in the hand of her son, Keith, in the winning story, “Life Line,” but does not find one.

The poems and stories in this issue are unusually quiet in nature. Both Judith Barrington’s “Ineradicable” and Mary Carroll-Hackett’s “Life Line” turn the reader’s gaze inward, in a split view of both past and future. Our esteemed judges, Jeff Knorr and Tim Schell, our colleagues and co-founders, selected works that illustrate the dignity of daily life and the tenacity of blood relations. A mother will see her child live no matter what, and a speaker will see all that an older man has survived. In each the individual prevails in a formidable time. These are not mere survival stories, for they are written with clarity, compression, and deceptive ease. Yet again, CLR owes our thanks to our founding duo, Tim and Jeff, for their dedication to the magazine and to the best writing.

We also owe thanks to Brad Stiles for his leadership the last two years. Brad was recruited after Jeff left much the same way as a baseball critic might have been: “You write about baseball, right? How about playing it?” So, he read poem after poem and selected fresh voices. When the next season started without Tim, it was as if someone said, “You know how to play ball; how about being an umpire?” So, Brad read story and essay with the same keen and eager eye. Bringing his love for Beat poetry, he has shaped the magazine and seen us through a transition from the founders to a new era. Brad also ran the magazine with humor and humility.

In the next issue, CLR welcomes Amanda Coffey as a new editor. She brings expertise in poetry writing and magazine editing. We eagerly await the ways she will mold the magazine. As all literary magazines experience, we too are struggling with our finances, and as ever, we are grateful to our readers and subscribers for their commitment.

Kate Gray