EDITOR'S DESK by Cheryl McGuire

Dear writers, I can’t continue without first acknowledging how honored I am to work with such a fun, talented group as are you. The submissions were fantastic. I know, I know, I probably said this in the last issue. Maybe you’ll get sick of hearing me say it (I hope not), but I can’t help myself. Adding pictures to your stories as we get ready to push the trigger on the fall edition makes me giddy. Your voices are so varied, creative, surprising. Thank you.

As we turn to November and December, the weather cooling, the leaves turning and falling from the trees, we begin to retreat indoors to the warmth of hearth and family. We look toward the fall and winter holidays. Our activities may change, our focus perhaps more internal. We’re entering a natural rejuvenation period that occurs in all of nature, and I am reminded of the importance of place in our lives, whether the place is where we are now or some remembered place of the past.

I’d like to share with you a challenge for the fun of seeing where it leads, possibly resurrecting fertile memories and emboldening new ideas for your writing. Some writers regularly use maps to set their stories in place. I’d like to make it more personal and suggest our writers draw a map of their childhood environments—a street, a neighborhood, a house, a special hideout. What do you remember—unique neighbors, exceptional incidents and daring adventures, bygone friends? What are the sights and sounds? And if you feel inspired by the remembered memories of these locations, flesh out your map with language in an essay, short story, or poem. The youth that dwells within us is provocative.  

Enjoy. Happy Holidays. We will see you when we meet again in January, 2020.