I have no time for a blog tonight. None. Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to Roanoke, VA at 4:AM to pick up our first print release, Smoking Mirrors, from the printer. Tomorrow afternoon our layout & design editor Melanie Moro-Huber and I will be hand-stitching books and tomorrow evening I'll be back on the road to the home office in Morgantown, West Virginia. From there it's off to Pittsburgh, PA to get the book signed and numbered by artist Matt Tuite, and then on Wednesday I'm off to AWP. Oh, and somewhere in there I'll be teaching a business and professional writing class and making a film-poem. Weeeeeeeee! Like I said, I'm busy.

On the front page of this magazine is a link to our new release, and I encourage you to take a look. If you think it's something you might be interested in please don't hesitate to pull the trigger. We're only printing 200 of this limited edition, fund-raising collection and none of us are looking forward to writing letters to folks to tell them we're sorry but we're sold out. All of us who worked on it are proud of this collection, the art & artists included in it, and I'll not ramble too much more about it now. Click on over to the release page for Smoking Mirrors for more info and I'll work on getting out of here.

Oh, one more thing. In Boston, if you see me, please come up and say hi. We'll be sharing table W6 with our friends from the Tusculum Review, And don't miss our off-site even with the folks from Sundress & Boxcar at The Greatest Bar, Thursday March 7th from 7-10PM. Follow us on facebook for more information on the event.

And on that note, let's kick this pig and see what it'll do!

We have a dynamic set of creative, award winning writers in A Poetry Congeries with John Hoppenthaler this month. John launches into his column with a nod to our writer friends to the north. From there he segues into an interview and new poems by his featured poet Jenna Butler. Joining Ms Butler in the Congeries this month are Ron Padgett, Lesley Wheeler, Sean Hill, Heidi Czerwiec, Mark Irwin, Jeanne Bryner, Diana Woodcock, William Leo Coakley, and Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers. Well done, John!

The Third Form, with Erica Goss continues with her exploration of the ever-expanding film-poetry form with a focus on the work of Kate Greenstreet. Erica interviews Kate and takes an in-depth look at her work through four stunning videos. We're really pleased at how this column is developing, although we knew it would flourish in Erica's capable hands. Enjoy!

Travel editor Nicholas Baker is still on vacation, this time in Thailand, and he's brought in his pal Jimmy to Discover Jerusalem through the eyes of his world-traveling, often back-packing, elementary school teaching, friend Jimmy. We have a lovely set of images, and the story of five friends from various places in Europe meeting up in search of a little warmth, sunshine, and pulsing blue skies. What a joy!

Our wine guy with a penchant for prestige and an ability to find the sublime in the indulgent, John Turi, veers on to the road less traveled by traveling the road of mega-tourism. This month John takes us on a road trip, alright. But not to a winery, as one might expect from a wine critic. Nope. John takes us to the Napa Rose, located at the Grand Californian Hotel in Disneyland! We at the home office are cracking up at this one. Why, do you ask, are we featuring Disneyland in our wine column? Because we LIKE you! M-O-U-S-E

Associate Poetry editor JP Reese visits our Book Review column this month and takes a look at Julie Innis' new collection, Three Squares a Day with Occasional Torture. We love this book, and Julie is also a contributor included in Smoking Mirrors so this post is doubly sweet. True, we can't take credit for the timing on this one, but still. Cool, right? Thanks JP for the terrific review, and we hope to have new about the return of Book Review editor Stephanie Brown soon!

Finally, our Featured Fiction & Creative Nonfiction authors this month are two of our absolute favorites. The extremely powerful Andrei Guruianu joins us in the Fiction column, and editor Meg Tuite conducts a compelling interview with Andrei, and our pal and returning contributor Faye Rapopor t Des Pres takes us on a hike with Thoreau with her wonderful piece, "Walden, Revisited." We're just thrilled to have Faye back with us! And as always, we remind you to come back on the 15th when our full Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction columns come back full speed, along with our Artisan Review.

Well, that's about it. If you're seriously thinking about grabbing a copy of Smoking Mirrors in this limited edition release we encourage you to do so quickly as we've already sold forty of the two hundred run and we'll probably do well with it at AWP. Thank you again for all the support and I'm really looking forward to hanging out with everyone Boston. Woohoo!

All best,

Ken Robidoux
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief