Click here to download a printable PDF version
Last year, when I walked away from the computer that sent Bloodroot’s first online edition out into the world, I headed toward Main Street, Hanover and cried a little bit because it was the first time Bloodroot came together without Do & Do, the dynamic combination of Dolores Netzband and the late “Do” Roberts. Reaching the corner of Main and Wheelock, a single white balloon was released from somewhere behind Left Bank Books. As the balloon went up into the morning sky, I realized I had been silently crying. As I watched the balloon with wonder my tears stopped. Here was the sign I had been waiting for.
I am proud to present the second digital edition of Bloodroot Literary Magazine. When Phyllis Katz, Ivy Schweitzer and I sat down to revive Bloodroot, we originally imagined a rotating editorship. In that spirit I invited the poet Sara Chaney to co-edit this edition with me. Chaney has brought new voices with her from her extensive editorial and publishing experience. If you’ve enjoyed a literary magazine lately, it’s likely that Chaney’s work has graced their pages. Together, we curated the local and national, with grand literary ambitions this issue seeks to be both an author platform and a highly curated online home for writing and writers alike.
Please read and share. Use this link to download a version you can print and staple. (Please note: it will appear upside-down, but when you print and fold it, the whole thing will make sense.) Make some chapbooks and leave them places where people wait, like bus stops. These words beg to be spoken and sung and shared. Thank you for reading.
Here in the Upper Valley, we are finally crawling out of winter. It has been a long and a bleak one. But finally, we can see the ground again. Right now, it is still parched and dry, but soon it will be ready for planting.
Spring is the season for modest miracles. Under a pile of last year’s dead leaves, we find the tough, budding head of a tiny crocus. I hope you all discover a multitude of tiny miracles in your own lives, and maybe one or two in the pages of this issue.
When Rena asked me to co-edit Bloodroot, I was excited. Not just because editing is a great way to discover and promote new writers, but because Bloodroot has such powerful connections to my community. I never knew Do Roberts or Deloris Netzband, but I know that they built Bloodroot as a community platform and that they were loved by the circle of writers who gathered there. I’m honored to help produce another issue of this Upper Valley institution.
Curating this issue was a pleasure. It was great to hear the range of voices of this community, as it is a pleasure to promote them. This issue takes us far beyond the Upper Valley, as well. Here you’ll find brick factory stacks, low-crouching midwestern towns, dead countries, and desert highways.
I hope you enjoy the journeys.
Click on a name to learn more about our contributors: