1 September 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Editor's Note: Previously Unpublished Writers Feature

by BRIAN LEARY

Next month, October 2007, 42opus will begin its seventh year of publication. If dog years measure seven for every one 'real' year, then Internet years must ran packed another seven to each dog's one. It's easy to grow old online, and grow old fast.

Six years have brought 42opus a lot of submissions from writers and a growing readership. Five and six years ago, many, many of the writers published in 42opus had never previously been published. Bringing these writers online for the first time was a thrilling and proud thing. And it has largely fallen out of my regular experience editing 42opus. Most of the writers we publish now are 'emerging writers,' that hopeful term for the many talented writers at their first and second books. It's rare that any given month at 42opus includes a writer who's never previously published.

This month, September 2007, is a special feature of previously unpublished writers. We received a great many submissions of many qualities and styles. I read them all personally, and selected my favorites.

The writers included in this month may not have yet been published elsewhere but their writing shows the same promise as any of the other writers we publish. The same attention to craft, to character. To line, and to voice. But I also found in these works a sincerity, an earnestness even, that extended through the brasher, wilder styles of chaotic energy just as into the more conservative voices. This sincerity seemed to me proof that these poems and stories were not so much created to be poems and stories but to be vehicles for emotion and meaning. That honesty—so often missing from later writer's work—that, I discovered, was the best part.

Many of the pieces I loved most were written by writers published in the months between submission and now; luckily, many other pieces I loved most came from writers ready for a debut. As they are published this month, they will be collected in our indexes under the label 'unpublished writers.'

Interspersed with these new writings will be reprints of the first published pieces by some of the masters.

I hope you find something you enjoy.