A Farewell
Those who know me well know I’m prone to exaggeration, so please forgive me when I say that Ducts has published, since its inception in 1999, 47 billion new pieces. And I’ve put my eyes on every single one of them. That’s a lot of eyeballing. After all that time, alas, my energy has waned and my eyeballs have begun to blur. But one thing I’ve learned over these years as the intrepid captain of starship Ducts is that the passion of our writers and audience have not waned in the least: the world seems in many ways messier now than when we started and the hunger for individual voices – sparkling, well-written, non-famous voices – to cut through the noise is greater than ever. And those voices deserve a leader whose eyeballs are not blurry. That’s why I’ve decided to step down as editor-in-chief of Ducts.org. It’s time.
For those who adore me (thanks, mom), fear not: I’m not going to disappear. I will continue to contribute in new ways to the webzine we all love, while taking a giant step back and letting a new leader step onto the Bridge. No, I haven’t coerced James T. Kirk to take my place. Our new Editor-in-Chief is Mary Cool and she is excited to boldly take Ducts to many of the same ports to which we’ve ventured in the past, while also exploring new frontiers. She’s way better than Kirk.
And now you’re thinking, “hey, Mary Cool, cool name. What’s her deal?” First of all, let me assure you that her last name really is “Cool.” She informs me it’s Dutch and goes back about 500 years and means cabbage. Mary will have the opportunity to say hello personally soon, but for now here’s a bit more about her:
Mary was born on the Canadian prairie to a cattle-ranching father and her mother, a woman of many professions and talents, who taught her daughter the valuable skills of being resourceful and landing on one’s feet. Mary is half Canadian and half American, in that order, and has lived everywhere from the family farm and small-town Manitoba, to the college towns of Minot, North Dakota, and Trier, Germany, where she studied German literature and art for the better part of a year. Mary has always been a “starter”, beginning with organizing her hometown’s first ever public book discussion group (shout out to the Melita Public Library!) at fifteen, and homeschooling herself through grades 11 & 12 when she got frustrated with her school’s lack of interesting classes. In the years since, she’s worked on documentary films, coordinated non-profit programming, run art and political engagement activities in schools (and one juvenile detention facility!), co-founded a local organic food share, and fought for tenant justice with the Crown Heights Tenant Union. If it’s not clear yet, she’s all about community and is excited about Ducts ongoing mission as the webzine of personal stories. She hopes to continue (and expand!) the important personal stories and points of view that emerge from its pages.
Mary is also a writer and artist. Although she is less skilled at visual art than she would like, she especially enjoys drawing and appreciates art in all its forms. She writes every day because it keeps her happy, and her short fiction has appeared in the online magazines Hogglepot and Storychord. She has also performed her work in the Kick Assonance literary series at the KGB Bar in the East Village. Mary has a Masters degree in Media Studies from New York City’s The New School, and she blogs about learning to write through reading at captivatedaudience.blogspot.com. She resides in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she has lived for the past decade with her husband Colin, two cats, and the occasional pet crayfish.
And since we’re introducing new members of our staff, please welcome our new Essays Editor, Helen Zelon (also, yes, really her name). Helen’s work has appeared in our e-pages for many years and she has always been one of our keenest supporters. It only makes sense, then, that she is joining our staff.
It’s been an amazing journey for me and I never imagined I’d be writing a letter like this sixteen years ago. Being the Editor-in-Chief of Ducts.org has meant reading tremendous work, of course, but it has also meant meeting many wonderful, wacky, interesting people. For that I’m grateful. And to you, the readers who buoyed me up over these many years, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You made this possible so now I hope you’ll take a moment and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Good luck, Ducts.org!
And now to our regularly scheduled Editor’s Note:
Our best of Ducts.org anthology, The Man Who Ate His Book, has been flying off the shelves, but we have plenty of copies left. For those new to the book, here’s what it says on the back cover:
Ducts.org, one of the first literary magazines on the web, was founded in 1999 and has since grown into a dependable and ambitious resource for readers looking for engaging and thought-provoking essays, memoirs, fiction, poetry, art and humor. In this, our second collection of some of our best, you will spend time with a dangerous SS man in the Warsaw Ghetto, enjoy sensuous cooking, experience a kiss that lasts forever, discover witticisms lost to time and meet The Man Who Ate His Book.
The book is available in the usual places online, but for now please feel free to email Charles Salzberg at Charles@greenpointpress.org to get your copy now!
As many of you know, Ducts.org is part of an umbrella organization called New York Writers Resources, dedicated to helping writers everywhere. Also under that umbrella are our two sister organizations. One of them, Greenpoint Press has continued the tradition of publishing extraordinary books that are too often over-looked by mainstream publishers. Publisher’s Weekly recently conducted an interview with Charles Salzberg, the Editor-in-Chief of Greenpoint Press, and we’re looking forward to seeing that in print.
Our latest book is Out From the Underworld, a wonderfully touching memoir by Heather Siegel who, with her sister, grew up on Long Island while being shuttled back and forth between their father, grandparents and foster homes after their mother disappears from their lives.
Meanwhile, our other books continue to sell well, led by Swann’s Last Song, by Charles Salzberg, which was nominated for a Shamus Award,
Schmuck, by Ross Klavan, which was well reviewed by NPR, Hello American Lady Creature, by Lisa Kirchner, You’re Not Leaving, by Dr. Benjamin Luft,Call of the Lark, by Maura Mulligan, Between Heaven and Earth, by Doug Garr, and Fierce Joy, by Ellen Schecter, and Patty Dann’s Starfish, her much anticipated sequel to the beloved Mermaids. But one of the biggest steps for our small publishing company is that we are now beginning to make all of our books available as e-books. By the next issue of Ducts, we hope to have our entire library digitalized and available to read on your Kindle or other e-reader. Already you can find Schmuck, Starfish, Hello American Lady Creature, We’re Not Leaving, Swann’s Last Song in the Kindle store and in the next two or three months look for all our other books there.
New York Writers Workshop continues to offer writing classes (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, and children’s literature) every fall, winter, and spring at the Manhattan JCC. We also hold free classes at various branches of the New York Public Library, as well as online classes. In addition, NYWW holds Pitch Conferences every spring and fall, where writers from all over the U. S. (and other countries as well) workshop their book ideas and then pitch them to editors from leading publishers. Our track record of books pitched at the conferences and then published includes the recently-released Twerp, a young adult novel by Mark Goldblatt, and Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid, a memoir by Jessica Alexander that will be published in the fall. The fall 2014 pitch conferences will be held October 10-12 for Non-Fiction and November 7-9 for Fiction (for adults and children/young adults). http://newyorkwritersworkshop.com/category/conferences
We continue to raise money as part of our effort to bring you the best personal stories on the web. If you enjoy the thought-provoking essays and memoirs, if you are captivated by our fiction, poetry and art, I urge you to donate whatever amount you can. Every little bit helps!
Thank you for visiting and please return again and again!
-Jonathan Kravetz, Editor-in-Chief
This issue of Ducts is made possible with a regrant from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, supported by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.