editorial

Welcome to issue #75 of The Interpreter’s House. I always heartily recommend that you savour all our poems and stories, but I’m putting a little extra emphasis on it this time around.

Why? Well, the work we’ve chosen for this issue is frankly marvellous. (Of course, it is. It always is.) But also, this particular serving is going to have to last you longer than previously: as you may have seen on our submissions page or Twitter feed, we’re planning to take a break for a while.

Why? Firstly, we have ideas, oh so many ideas, of how to make improvements at the House and move forward in exciting ways. Emails have been bouncing around the editorial team in recent months Oh, do you know what we could do….Why don’t we…Would it be better if…? Yet we are mere mortals and have competing demands for our limited time and attention from jobs, families, submissions and, even, on occasion, our own writing. Consequently, we haven’t had time to work on any of these ideas. Postponing the submission cycle will provide opportunity for discussions, research, decisions and planning. There will be mind maps, possibly on a whiteboard. I can almost smell the new marker pens.

Also, and in the stressful hellscape  of 2020 it is important to be transparent about this, we need a rest. Everybody has had to make hefty adaptations at home and work because of Covid-19. Everybody has had to spend a little bit more time taking care of others and hopefully being taken care of too. We at the House are no different. I for one am exhausted, and, while Annie and Lou always look bright eyed and bushy tailed on Zoom, I know that they too could do with putting their feet up for a while. We’ll come back in 2021, refreshed and with new plans for sharing great writing and supporting talented writers.

Don’t despair: you have the work of twenty two brilliant writers to enjoy in the meantime. We had a particularly large flurry of fiction submissions this time around so we drafted in a guest editor to share the reading with Annie. Lizzie Fowler, a writer of both short and long fiction, who stepped in and did a great job. Thank you to Lou, Annie and Lizzie for all your work, judicious insight and camaraderie while we built this issue. Not only did Annie and Lizzie read a lot more stories than usual, the standard was especially high so rather than the customary three stories, we have included six. Fiction fans, feast your eyes! The poetry submitted for issue #75 was also of an extraordinarily high standard. If you submitted but weren’t successful this time, don’t feel too disheartened. If we asked you to submit again, we sincerely meant it and hope to read more of your work in 2021. The poems that we finally chose after much agonising are, like Miss Jean Brodie’s girls, the crème de la crème.

So please, settle in to the House, get yourself a drink, pick a comfy chair – we recommend drawing it close to the fire – and spend an hour or two with our poems and stories.

See you in 2021. Be safe, well and happy until we meet again.

Georgi