“You have to see the baby.”
It’s a classic line from Seinfeld. And sure, it seems terribly
wrong to be quoting a television show for the first line of what
we hope will be a wildly successful literary and arts magazine,
but this is our baby. We birthed it.
It wasn’t easy. We got moody. We worried about money. We
fought over what the font should be. It took many months. And
now that it’s out, breathing on its own, we’re going
to take a nap.
Just like the spawning of a real baby, our baby required lots
of help. Before we go one keystroke further, we want to thank
the writers who made this issue possible. As you will see in the
back matter, they are actually a wildly successful lot. They have
books that sell, and get paid for their work, something they sacrificed
in order to help us. We remain indebted to them all.
We want to thank our friends in the writing community around us.
Yes, you’re beautiful people. Compliment yourselves. You
paid for a subscription. You gave us books for our fund-raiser.
You came to our fund-raiser and bought more books. You put up
with the messes we made. And we think you still like us.
Finally, we want to thank everyone else who’s reading this
right now. We don’t know how you got a copy of our baby,
but we’re glad you did. Our baby is only happy if someone
is looking at it. And as true parents, we are delighted whenever
someone is looking at our baby, because we think it’s wonderful.
If you like this baby, send us a sawbuck and we’ll make
sure the baby continues to find its way to you.
Even better, send us a poem, a story, a drawing, or an essay.
Even more better, tell a friend about our baby. Two friends. Five.
There’s still a lot of baby sitting in our attics.
In our next issue, we’re running a contest that will help
support some good, aspiring writers and also help support this
baby. It will be a good contest. Fred Chappell will be judging.
The entry fee is small and fair. We want you to enter. We’ll
throw in a free subscription if you do.
You can find more details about the contest, about how to subscribe,
and about everything else in the world either somewhere in this
baby or online at www.backwardscity.net.
Okay, enough already. You came all this way. Flip the page. It’s
time to see the baby.
— Gerry, Tom, Patrick, Jaimee, Ezra
