A Spiffy Anniversary in the Penny Press!

A ten-year anniversary is a milestone for any kind of monthly publication. The meshing of personalities, the jostling of priorities, and the unpredictable vagaries of the work-flow might be expected to hang together for a little while, a year maybe, and it might be hoped they could work for a little longer than that, perhaps five years, before personal and impersonal forces pulled the whole thing apart like saltwater taffy. So ten years is a nice impressive lifespan for such an endeavor – and how much more so for something created by a small handful of people who a) live in different cities, states, and countries, b) don’t get paid for their work, and c) have to fit their efforts into lives already crowded with work, family, other writing commitments, and the ever-present demands of the New Orleans nightlife?

And yet, for ten years the cast of editors behind the scenes at Open Letters Monthly have been doing just that: month after month putting out one of the finest little literary journals in the English-speaking world, issues full of reviews, poems, and essays, issues pulled and cajoled and compromised and argued together by editors who are also writers, and writers who are voracious readers.

March marks the 10-year anniversary of Open Letters Monthly, and I couldn’t let the first day of that anniversary pass without singing its praises here at Stevereads. It’s been the privilege of a lifetime to be a part of this ramshackle, striving, wonderful collective project. Here’s to ten more years!