September 30, 2023
When we opened submissions for Issue 17, I was feeling very confident. After all, we’ve been publishing Feral for over 3 years. Along the way we’ve learned the best ways to organize, read and vote on the hundreds of submissions that come through our inbox. We have a small, but mighty team and we trust each other to do the work required for a small press. Yep, I thought, we got this!
Then, I started noticing something. I noticed that I could predict how each of our staff would vote on the poems. I noticed that I was beginning to make decisions based on what we “typically” publish. I noticed that we all had grown very comfortable, and dare I say it, we had grown somewhat tame. Nope, I thought, that is not what this journal is about!
I went back to the first editor’s letter I wrote in April of 2020 (that’s right, we published our first issue in the middle of lockdown) and I found these words. We told potential contributors that we could not guide them in terms of style or “what we like.” We asked them to show us what they wanted Feral to be, to surprise us. Uh oh, I thought, it’s time to shake things up!
With that in mind, I made the decision that we needed to get uncomfortable; we needed to allow for more teeth, more claws, more unfamiliar. And I probably made some final decisions that surprised my team. Yep, I thought, we’ve got to get back to being FERAL!
So, wildings, in Issue 17 you will find the work of 33 poets and 14 artists. All but 4 of our poets are new to Feral, and we also have 5 new artists in this issue. I hope you love their work as much as we do…and I also hope that their work challenges you, makes you a little uncomfortable, makes you see the world as wild and unpredictable. And, also, I hope that you stood outside and howled at the Harvest Moon.
Beth Gordon
Managing Editor