Editor’s Page, Issue
#100
Wichita, Kansas,
July 6th, 2022
Sometimes milestones are kinda hard to face. June the 27th was a
milestone for me, my 78th birthday. Hard to face on a personal level, knowing
you may be on your last lap around the track. Even though I’m in good health
and still possess all my faculties, I can tell I’m slowing down. I’m not as
mentally sharp as I once was. I make up for that by paying closer attention and
listening more closely to what others have to say.
This issue of BP is a milestone. This is the end of our 25th
year of putting out what has become recognized as a pretty darn good little
mag. People have come and gone over the years. There was Danielle Naibert, who
edited under the name of D. M. Yorton. She started Black Petals in the basement
of an apartment in Manitowoc, Wisconsin one winter, along with four other
magazines, as a way of keeping some income coming in and making ends meet.
Danielle passed on after giving me the magazine to run.
There was John Gollihar, a personal friend, who helped me edit the
mag for several years and he is also gone to his reward.
Anne Stickel is no longer with us and I have heard very little from
Watsonville, California. There were health concerns there, as well.
The magazine has gone through many incarnations. It started as a
stapled white-sheet thing, made on a copier, then a center-stapled five-by-eight inch mag with covers of colored construction
paper, then to a
five-by-eight with perfect-bound covers. It finished print with Issue #40, by
then an 8 ½ by 11 inch center-stapled actual magazine with glossy covers. Still
have a few of those lying around.
Along the way we gave many writers their first publication and
encouraged many who were about to say, “the hell with this” and just give up.
Even one or two in there who became actual novelists later on.
Both Black Petals and our sister mag, Yellow Mama, have given me an
outlet for my own writing, something I intend to keep on with until I die. Then
I’ll taper off a little. Cindy Rosmus over at YM has been my best and most
honest critic and I try to be hers. We have worked well together since 2008 and
have only met in person one time. God bless the Internet.
Anyway, the first 25 years have been fun—let’s just see how far we
can run this thing! To all the writers and illustrators who have given so much
of your time and talent so willingly, Thank You! I love Black Petals, but it’s
really about you folks and what you can do. I love you all…
Kenny Crist, BP Editor
