The most recent issue of Third Wednesday is out on paper and online. My own copy was delayed in the mail, so I am just reading it now. In a way. In another way, I have that déjà-vu-all-over-again feeling, because for this issue I had the honor of serving as an associate guest editor.

I didn’t know what to expect, of course, since I have only been on the other side of the submission process for many years, sending work out to strangers and hoping they might be attracted enough to what I have done to want to print it.

The process set up by Third Wednesday, was, I found, professional, respectful, and streamlined. Third Wednesday publishes prose and graphic art as well as poetry, but I helped out only with the poetry submissions. All the work I saw was read “blind,” which means I had no idea who wrote each piece and had no idea of that each morning, for three months, what I would find when I would check my email inbox, read the new work sent to me by editor David Jibson. I was to read the work, mark it with a “Yes” or a “No” or a “?” and also provide a succinct comment on why I ranked the work as I did. After that, it was up to the regular (or, as I would call them in my head, “the REAL”) editors to make final decisions on what to include. Many times, I found myself very grateful that I was not charged with that more important step!

I noticed changes in the level or work flow, with submissions increasing in the last six weeks or so of the submission period. In myself, I noticed that at first I had a real hesitancy to render judgment. I didn’t want to be unfair to any poet or work in front of me, and I did not want to make a “mistake.” I also didn’t want the folks at Third Wednesday to feel that they had made a mistake in asking me to join them for a short time.

What I came to realize was that I didn’t have to be “right,” I just had to be focused, honest, open-minded, succinct, and timely in my responses. In other words, I learned that editorial work is a labor of love to which the editor brings his or her whole self, and that it is an art form, too. Since this experience, my respect for the editors who do this work year in and year out has increased significantly. It was always high–now it is sky-high! For me, the welcome engagement on the other side of the desk (or email inbox) was very stimulating but came at the price of using up my daily quotient of “poetry flow.” I wrote very little of my own from August through October of last year. Now I vow to be even more careful to read guidelines carefully before submitting to any journal, and to receive both acceptances and rejections with gratitude for the care that went into them.

If you look closely at the list of visual artists, you’ll see that my name is there. Earlier in the year, Judith Jacobs accepted a photo for future issue. How surprised and pleased I was to see that photograph in this issue!

Another wonderful surprise was to see that Northfield’s own Rob Hardy has two poems I recall vividly (without knowing they were his, of course): “Wild Onion” and “Letter”. Indeed, “Letter” was chosen as the winner of the issue’s “50/50” contest and also chosen as a poem of the week on their blog. You can read it HERE. (Rob and I were both pleased to see the journal cite Northfield as “a hotbed of poetry.” It is a wonderful place to live and work as a poet, with many talented colleagues in poetry and the other arts, and a lot of support for the arts, generally, for such a small city. Poetry has been growing in visibility here for some time, and the quantum leaps its made in recent years, from readings to public poetry events, is due to the vision of Rob as our Poet Laureate. Thank you, Rob! And kudos!)

Third Wednesday can be read for free online. (My photograph is called “Enigma Cafe.”) Paper copies can be purchased on Amazon. And if you would like the quarterly delight of your own paper copy as a subscription, or would like to know more about the history of this journal, or perhaps send in your own submission to a regular issue or the yearly contest (deadline February 15) do take a look at their website.

Wishing you happy winter reading, writing, and (possibly) editing!

LESLIE