Eight months ago, we were reeling in excitement as iddie came into existence. By the time the first issue was up and running, we couldn’t quite believe that we had pulled it off. iddie was a success! Not only did we successfully bring a new literary journal to life, but we began to receive some great responses from those published in our electronic pages, as well as from our readership, which has been steadily increasing since that day.
While we sat marvelling at our creation and all the work that went into it, there was a part of me, you know, the deep down inside part, that thought pulling this little journal together and getting it online was easier than it should have been. So I tied that part of myself to a chair and broke out the duct tape and stretched it across its mouth. Better to ignore it and let myself relax, so I sat back ready to enjoy the ride.
I quickly discovered that the voices were right. While the initial creation of the concept and publication of the journal was not as hard as I imagined it would be, sustaining the momentum and producing a quality follow up issue does become its own beast. The monster that is the glorious Issue 2 that you see before you quite nearly took its toll on myself and stretched the limits of just about everyone involved.
Over the past eight months, just about every member of our staff has gone through some major life change – for me, that meant packing up my books, and there were so many books, and my dog, and shedding a tearful goodbye to my pool table and moving half way across the country to start a new job.
So while there have been many trials and tribulations along this road, I am proud to say that we are all still standing, and iddie is back for another round!
Issue 2 marks an important milestone for us. Just as I was getting ready to send all of the content to Ryan for publication, I received the confirmation that we have an approved ISSN! iddie is now Library of Congress approved. Along with Issue 2, we also welcome a new member to our Masthead. Marie Masters will be joining us as our Creative Non-Fiction editor as we begin to look forward to Issue 3.
In the mean time, we are proud to present a number of new voices in this edition of iddie, and we are privileged to be the first to publish their work. We also welcome back Corey Mesler and Nanette Crawshaw, both published in Issue 1.
We have learned a lot from wrestling with the beast this time around, and we are ready to take on the monster that will be Issue 3. Until then, I hope you enjoy the fine writing that we have discovered in the process.
