Two current – and one former – Lopezians are among the writers and artists featured in SHARK REEF Literary Magazine’s Summer 2013 edition, online now at sharkreef.org. They are visual artist Colin Goode and poets Kathy Holliday, still on island, and Maya Borhani. Founded in 2001 as a venue for Lopez writers, SHARK REEF is now in its second decade and accepting good writing from artists wherever the internet reaches.
Editor and co-founder Reese partners with a different co-editor for each issue. In the introduction to the Summer 2013 issue, Jeremiah O’Hagan, co-editor with Reese for prose, writes about stories being “the currency of human consciousness. As long as we keep telling them, we’ll keep evolving. As long as we keep listening, we’ll keep learning. As long as we keep learning, we’ll keep experiencing small miracles, forever and ever.” O’Hagan is a staff reporter for a small-town weekly newspaper in Washington State and has an MFA with a concentration in non-fiction.
About the poetry in the issue, co-editor for poetry Tom Aslin says: “Some of our best poetry is easily approachable and strives to be poetry that has an emotional honesty or truth about it. The poems in this issue move toward a kind of transparency, have some truth about them, and as such possess an integrity that should be valued.”
Aslin and Gary Thompson a San Juan Islander, have served as poetry co-editors for the past two issues. Thompson taught in the creative writing program at California State University for over 25 years and has four collections of poetry.
A northwest native, Aslin studied with the late Richard Hugo, and has published a chapbook and a full-length collection which was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award in poetry. Both Aslin and Thompson hold masters in fine arts degrees from the University of Montana.
Featured artist Colin Goode has been painting in oils for 60 years. He now works as a full time artist on Lopez and teaches regular landscape workshops as well as Byzantine iconography.
Anne Puotinen from Chicago is also featured in the summer edition. Judith Connor, St. Paul, Minn., is art editor for the magazine.
Said Reese: “After 13 years, it’s still exciting to see what turns up in SHARK REEF’s e-mailbox. We continue to be both pleased and encouraged by the quality of the work being submitted and look forward, always, to the next poem or piece of prose and, then, the one after that. We appreciate the support of readers as well as writers and hope people will keep turning to SHARK REEF for good writing.”
Originally published by the Lopez Writers Guild, SHARK REEF has, for several years, been published by Lopez Island author and publisher, Iris Graville. Readers can subscribe to SHARK REEF at no cost at sharkreef.org. Updates about the publication also are posted on the magazine’s Facebook page (Shark Reef Literary Magazine).
SHARK REEF publishes two issues a year, one in the summer and one in winter, with submission deadlines of March 31 and September 30, respectively. The literary magazine considers solicited and unsolicited material: fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry and dramatic writing. It also features artwork by visual artists in each issue. Go to sharkreef.org for submission guidelines, current offerings and archived issues.
