An Explanation, Part 1

Yes, I've been ignoring Poetry Midwest for the past couple of weeks. My household was with a round of colds (not the flu, thank goodness) and one of my kids developed a fairly nasty case of pneumonia that she is still recovering from. I'm behind in teaching my classes (I'm about a week behind my syllabi in all but my Creative Writing course) and I only barely crawled out from beneath the piles of essays needing grading before I picked up another round of essays this week. Poetry Midwest has suffered in the meantime.

As you might have noticed, the End of Summer issue was never released. In fact, I never got around to finishing the second round of acceptances, and some submissions have lingered in my inbox for several months. To those who are still waiting to hear from me, I'm sorry for the delay and the silence. I'll be sending out the remainder of the acceptances and rejections this week, in an effort to clear out the inbox by this Wednesday.

I'm going to combine the End of Summer and the Fall 2009 issues, just like last year. I hate doing this, but there is no way around it at this point. I'm aiming for a November release of this combined issue.

I realize that, as an editor, I have taken a large credibility hit over this last year, as I have been unable to meet self-imposed deadlines, respond to submissions, get acceptances out, etc. The journal's reputation has suffered as a result, and for this I am truly regretful.