Patricia Florio
I’d be lying if I said putting together the Fall 2011 Issue of East Meets West, American Writers review was all fun and games. Quite the opposite.
Sue and I shared a family problem these past six months that took both of us by surprise. Usually when you’re partners on a venture like this, we tried our best to give our first contest high priority; I mean, at least the first issue, the first of any project you want to do your absolute best. Well the gods of printing literary reviews preferred to give us our Baptism of Fire. Okay, so we could handle both husbands being tested for cancer in the same month, almost on the same day. Alan, Sue’s husband, had his surgery years ago, but his blood tests and yearly checkup, alarmed the doctor that new cancer cells were circulating again through his body which put both Alan and Sue into a state of panic.
My husband Ralph, on the other hand, diagnosed at the end the third week of August with colon cancer, had emergency surgery two days later, a three-week recovery period, and started chemo treatments sometime in September. That’s not a way for two women to enter into a new contract to have their first literary review out and ready for November 1st.
Our judges performed on our behalf with valor: Brian, Rashidah and Ginger were in our corner and helped us get through the editing. But there’s always going to be a SNAFU with layouts and printing, and yes, we had all of the above go haywire. The printer closed two weeks before Christmas and let our Fall Issue lay there until he came back some time the second week of January. Without giving Sue the benefit of proofing, because we were so late in delivering our first literary review, he sent it out. So our apologies go out to Anne Henry for a piece of her short story being cut off in the middle. And that’s where we’re at, right now, waiting for new books to arrive with this gross error corrected.
Now that the men in our lives are on the mend, we put up a date for our Spring 2012 literary contest, that we’re going to extend until April 2012.
So if you’re ready to send out some poetry, short stories, fiction or nonfiction, essays (and I see Sue has added an excerpt of a memoir that’s self-contained) do it and let’s get this show on the road. Again!
Give us a holler and let us know what you think. Check in at www.serapublishing.com and click on the button for the contest link.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you!
That’s who came in first, second and third for cash prizes, and then the two honorable mentions of fourth and fifth place. 
