Be Here Now

Edited by Barrie Jean Borich

Why ‘Little’ Magazines are a Big Deal – My first short story was published in the Fall/Winter 1989 issue of The Prairie Light Review, a literary journal supported by College of DuPage in Chicago’s western suburbs. The Prairie Light Review, one of the so-called “little” magazines, published “Balmy” plus three more stories and a poem in subsequent issues. My work in those days was so clearly influenced by Raymond Carver’s writing, not a bad influence to have when it comes to storytelling. My work, too, was published alongside two writers who would become dear friends, though we were strangers at the time: Robert N. Georgalas and David McGrath. I would later meet Bob in graduate school at Columbia College Chicago’s fiction writing program, and then meet David through Bob. Together, along with Joanne Pepe, Jo-Ann Ledger and Mark Wukas, we would come to form Polyphony Press, which published three volumes of stories, poems, and scripts between 1999 and 2003. So, my early publications in The Prairie Light Review meant, and mean, the world to me. First, they provided me with confidence, which every artist needs to keep going. Second, they provided me with an audience, which almost every writer desires. And third, they introduced me to the work of other impressive writers, which reminds me that talent is not rare. This past March, at the Let’s Just Write conference, sponsored by Chicago Writers Association and convened at the Allerton Hotel overlooking Michigan Avenue, I picked up a copy of Be Here Now, a “miniature” published by Slag Glass City. Slag Glass City is primarily an online non-fiction journal, supported by DePaul University. Be Here Now (Volume 4, June 2018, Number 1) features five essays and numerous photographs. I hope the excellent writers and photographers here have kept making art and keep making art. These and so many other voices help us decipher the world in which we live.