Let me introduce myself: I am Gerald Maa, a new person in an old office. I started my job as editor of The Georgia Review only two weeks ago, and I’m honored to be the latest link in a long chain of editors that extends back to 1947, when the journal was founded at the University of Georgia. I succeed Stephen Corey, who has devoted slightly more than half his life to making sure that The Georgia Review publishes work of the highest order issue after issue. His tenure as editor closes with the Fall 2019 issue (due out in September), which includes a valedictory essay that should not be missed.
As Stephen has assured you, we aren’t missing a beat with the transition. We’re glad to announce the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize winner for this year and will soon share the details for next year’s competition. We’re also happy to announce that submissions are open 15 August, as always. (Remember that submissions are free for current subscribers to The Georgia Review.) We are currently preparing for events with poets Alberto Ríos and Eavan Boland, whose work is featured, respectively, in our Summer and Fall issues. In January we will be staging a reading and conversation on queer faith with Muslim writer Kazim Ali. And later this fall we will be working with UGA’s Special Collections Library when it brings poet A. E. Stallings for induction into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.
A print periodical—dare I say here—is capable of cultivating communities in ways that no other medium can. To open up a journal—break a spine, perhaps—to carry a volume, or run your fingers over your name printed on a page is very special. But to congregate around a print journal is also special in its own right. So subscribe, submit, read, and write. But also don’t forget to introduce yourself, when you have the chance, at the Decatur Book Festival, the Brooklyn Book Festival, AWP, or one of our local events. Or tell us online what you are reading or thinking. We live to hear whatever words you have to offer us, even if it’s simply a “hello.”