And we always do our best to present our contributors' work in a classy and attractive way. We run a little about America and a lot about the rest of the world. The overlapping categories of journalism and personal essays are our mainstays. My own contacts and expertise tend to be Asia-centric, so I especially welcome queries from Africa and Latin America. Some fiction and poetry might find their way onto Blue Ear eventually, though these would have to be very special.
Book reviews are nice, though only from writers with real authority on the books' topics.
One of the great satisfactions for a literary editor can be to help nurture and promote young talent. For instance, I'm investing time and attention in Dominic Hamilton , a quite young but talented and enterprising English writer who has a lot to say about Venezuela and Chile. I'm proud to have the honor of working with Mary Kay Magistad , whom I consider one of the best working journalists around today. I'm proud of the two essays we've published so far by Michael Betzold , who was my best mentor and is both a very good writer and an honest one, a rare combination. Mark Fritz has been generous and very pleasant to deal with, and his book is marvelous.