From the Editors The genius of the whole.
The process is “relentless, slow,” but momentum builds until the new issue takes shape. Submissions arrive like snowflakes, snowballs, to accumulate, unread, ready for later review. Ideas take shape, at first sparse, then, thick and urgent. We read as a team and pick the best. Suddenly we have too much and exceed our self-imposed limits. We asked for it. We like it. The result is a dandy issue. Consider these features:
• Susanna Mishler reviews Jeremy Pataky’s new book, Overwinter, considers the slippery “you.” • Vered Mares speaks of her father’s passing, the 2015 Andy Hope Award winner, Ernest A. “Tony” Mares. • • •
Vered runs a publishing house with maybe six authors in her group. She warned her dad that his obituary would be her first published piece. So it is. Former Alaska Poet Laureate Joanne Townsend provides an “update.” Cirque will continue this feature with other laureates/notable writers of the North Pacific region. Poet, Emily Wall interviews Fairbanks poet John Morgan, about his new collection, Archives of the Air. Alaska’s “Poems in Place” is covered in a feature by Cirque’s nonfiction editor Cynthia Sims.
And much more creating a genius of the whole as each element clangs against another creating unpredictable synchronous sparklings. Like ice. A piece from Tele Aadsen opens the issue. Known to Cirque via her blog, Tele submitted after much urging. Poems by David Wagoner enrich this collection. We consider him the Northwest poet laureate for life. When we decline a writer’s work, we explain that we cut work we would publish. We cut painfully deep – about 100 pages had to be pulled from this issue – to get down to a still enormous volume of 143 pages (our ever-elusive goal being 100). As a consequence, the issue price takes a small nudge to $20. Cirque can discount purchases of five or more (mix and match) by 40%. Email us to work that out. Between issues, editors Burwell and Kleven met in Taos, New Mexico. Since we began partnering on Cirque nearly four years ago, all contact had been electronic. Three wild days slipped by dreamlike, while the late snow of Taos, fell “relentless slow, like salt from a shaker shaken.” A good, grand time was had by all, shaping visions of Cirque into the future. With this issue we also want to acknowledge the passing of Cirque contributor, Julius Rockwell, Ph.D., who died at 97 years of age. When he turned 90, Julius proclaimed that he was reinventing himself in order to find someone with whom he might share his life. He accomplished this and went on to produce two plays and publish at least three stories. RIP my friend.
Sandra L Kleven ~ Michael Burwell Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim Sandra Kleven and Mike Burwell, Editors Paxson Woelber, Designer Assistant to the Editors – Paul Winkel Published twice yearly on the Winter and Summer Solstices Anchorage, Alaska
Poetry Editors Cynthia Lee Sims Carmen Maldonado-Patrick Monica Divine
Fiction Editors Gretchen Phelps Jerry McDonnell
Drama Editor Jerry McDonnell
Nonfiction Editor Douglass Bourne Sherry Eckrich