Wow…hot enough for ya? Don’t know what it’s like where you are, but out here in the “Great American Desert” it’s hot and humid. Wheat harvest is pretty much over and the cows are seeking shade. The oil rigs are…rigging. Doing whatever they do.

Here at Black Petals, we are fast approaching the century mark as we bring you issue #96. At four issues per year, well you can do the math. Been at it a long time.

I think the thing that keeps me going is finding and publishing new writers. This issue we have several newcomers to BP. We have writers, poets, a couple of critics (I mean the professional kind) and editors of other magazines. Some of our old standbys are back, too.

We have a poet, Mehmet Akgönül, who contacted us from Ankara, Turkey and a writer who is from Scotland. Then, there’s Samantha Carr from Plymouth, UK and Chris Allyne, who was born in Barbados, but is presently stuck in Finland. We seem to draw writers from all over.

I didn’t grow up with computers and the Internet, so every once in a while I catch myself remembering how it used to be. Sending copies of the magazine, printed at some expense by a place in Concord, New Hampshire that specialized in small jobs, to far places on the planet, sometimes costing eight bucks to send a writer a single complimentary copy to Australia. And wondering why the mag never turned a profit. Well, it still doesn’t, but now it doesn’t cost me nearly as much.

Black Petals has been one of my hobbies for years and I don’t plan to give it up anytime soon. Barring any catastrophe, I’ll be here, knocking out that issue quarterly. I know you’ve already looked for your own story or poem, if you have one in here, and I hope I’ve done a good job of getting your material out there. While you’re here, take a look at what some of your fellow writers are doing. Let’s make that hit-counter spin right up there…Thanks, guys and gals!

Wichita, KS

7/15/21