I am sorry to greet the New Year with bad news, but I do not have enough fresh material on hand to bring out the Winter 2024 Showcase here at the zen space. This is the first time in more than a decade that this has happened. I am truly sorry.
However, if you keep submitting and, more importantly, tell all your friends who write short-burst, in-the-moment pieces about the zen space, I am sure I will have enough for the Spring 2024 issue.
I told you recently that I was stepping down as editor. Unfortunately (or fortunately, look at it whichever way you want to) no one else has stepped up. So for now I’m continuing. As always, I shall do my best, the current problem notwithstanding.
We have received a couple of important emails from Jim Kacian, who is looking for material for the Red Moon Anthology and for the next edition of Haiku in English. Now, before you all get excited and start reaching for the “Compose” button in your email account, he has asked for my help, along with the help of other editors, to do it. In short, if I can get an opportunity to do so, I will be nominating work by some of you for both of these. The unpleasant part of this task, from my point of view, is having to leave 99% of you out. I know how you will feel – time and time again during my life I have missed out on stuff and been fed the mimeographed line that my efforts and talents were nevertheless appreciated. It always felt thin, and I’m sorry that it will feel thin to you too, when I say it. When it comes to writing, whether it be poetry, fiction, haiku, essays, whatever, I fall back on the advice of my own literary agent; he says the greatest achievement is always the finished work. I can assure you that over the years during which I have been editing the zen space I have truly appreciated every single contribution.
May I wish everyone a happy 2024, and especially may I wish you all a peaceful one, wherever and whoever you may be.
I am going to leave you with a haiga by John Hawkhead, as a New Year treat.
Marie Marshall
editor
the zen space
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