One gets ambition to do a journal, and one kicks themself in the ass. Thumbtack Sketches taught me a few valuable lessons: respect editors and respect poetry journals. Granted, I've been an editor before, but of a nonrelated media -- tourism guides. Editing is tough job when people pay you, but it grows even harder when it is a labor of love, a job you bring upon yourself and your own expenses.

You see, you get this dream, this unquenchable vision of something you have to do. Then life gets in way, forcing one to work on everything except the journal you so wanted to put your effort into. Nobody likes to admit failure, as it is a humbling process. Yet, I have to announce that my dream of a prose poem, haibun, and flash fiction publication has been hereby dead. Shame, I wanted to do it, and I wanted to do a damn good job. Yet, one has to realize the facts. . .

I don't have time for this. No, let me articulate that a little better: I don't have time to do such an ambitious aim justice. Sure, I teach and have to grade papers. Sure, I feel like a bag of shit accepting work, and then being a lame-ass in not publishing it, and sure, I'm going to UNC-Wilmington for a Masters of Fine Arts in Fiction, but that doesn't change the failure to deliver on something I beleived had promise. I even think trying and failing abysmally has tarnished my name as an editor. It should.

Editors are passionate people. They believe in things passionately enough to work hard at producing a quality journal, zine, or listserv for little compensation other than self satisfaction. My failure is a poor reflection on these people and their work ethic. Sure, I was also the editor of a few tourist magazines, but I eventually left that job. In short, I don't feel I have what it takes to be a reliable.

To everybody who sent me work, thank you. I appreciate the chance you took, and I apologize for being an asshole -- I made obligations to people and I'm not able to follow through. Best of luck placing the writing elsewhere, because it deserves to be in print.

in humility,

rich ristow