Thank you for reading our first issue.

1 July 2022

As a young graduate student of English literature twenty years ago, I was fascinated with grail mythology, specifically myths that preceded and seemed to foretell a cup of Christ. It was the kind of theorizing that attempts to show there is nothing new under the sun. One such myth was Aoife, whose skin was used as the well-known crane bag in Irish lore (an image that seems so violently patriarchal now, evoking the horrifying serial killer from Silence of the Lambs). From here, I found birds in everything, from Athena’s owl to the ancient idea of augury—decoding the universe through the behavior of the natural world. I cannot see a murmuration of starlings without imagining a riddle being solved or Hamlet’s line, “We defy augury.”

Eventually, it became clear that this academic analysis was based on a purely aesthetic joy; to me, it was poetry, not literary theory. So I left it behind.

Last summer I wanted to start a literary magazine, but I was afraid of the process. There are so many worthwhile magazines already! And yet, I continually attended writing workshops and read wonderful work that was not getting published. My conclusion was that there is room for more. Time will tell.

When thinking of a name, I returned to those birds, and at the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, I put a bird on it. That’s the birth of riddlebird. 

After buying a domain name, creating an initial website, imagining the magazine’s identity, and registering with CLMP, I gave up. Life got busy again. Months later, Gabrielle Belknap (my wife) –another English teacher and recent PhD recipient—took up the abandoned project. She has made this all possible. And I must tell you there is something really enjoyable about going on walks with her during our open submission period and discussing the many different pieces and her vision for how the magazine should look. For content, we sought to bring balance between writing styles and topics. All are beautifully crafted with distinct voices. The connections between diverse genres and writers is intentional. In this group of eight writers, five are from outside of the United States. 

We’ve divided the magazine into three sections. Essays appear in the Plosive, which houses creative non-fiction, like Stephen Policoff’s “About Suffering,” an essay that discusses grief—which is like weather—and includes two honest moments that will resonate with fellow grievers: One is looking at something you’ve shared with a lost loved one and feeling the uncanny absence of them; the other is trying to explain or even offer advice about suffering.

The writer Ai Jiang gifts us with “Lizard Tongue,” an essay that recalls her lingual frenectomy (surgery that involves removing a piece of the tongue). With the promise of a zoo visit, her aunt stops along the way to have the surgery done. It’s a story of trust and betrayal, and how our idea of these two things changes from childhood to adulthood. It’s also about language and belonging. 

A third essay, “Dear Deer” by Virginia Boudreau is a non-traditional meditation on nature. This piece reminds us we are part of a much larger, more important, world.  

We have two other sections for fiction. First, literary fiction will appear in our Prairie Grass Prose section. “Trail’s End,” by Mark Jonathan Harris and “Bonhomie,” by Sneha Narayan  explore the pain of isolation and the power of empathy and human connections. 

When Gabrielle finished “Slide,” by Daniel Zingaro, she felt the abrupt comedy of it, whereas I felt something tragic. It’s the story of a boy who loves water slides, but he finds one slide that he is not tall enough to use. He must wait a year. The anticipation is humorous, but the world he desires always seems to be moving one step away from him. Perhaps growing up is like that.

Finally, the second fiction section is Pipesmoke Frontier, where solid “genre” work will appear. For this volume, Susan Lin’s “Pimento” gives us an appliance foretelling the end of the world and the character’s amusing fascination (we won’t give it away). The post-apocalyptic element is enough for us to include it in Pipesmoke. Then we have an otherworldly voice of the Cuckoo in “From the Cuckoo.” It’s a voice so well-crafted that we had to include it in our first volume. The cuckoo tantalizes a couple on holiday  by always remaining achingly out-of-sight. 

We hope you enjoy the hard work each of these authors has gifted us. 

Sincerely, 

Joshua Thusat and Gabrielle Belknap 

P.S. We would like to thank Jessica Campbell for her extraordinary copy editing skills.