Editor's Note

Issue 70, February, 2016
Editor's Note

"A Pilgrim's Path" is Donna Day Westerman's artwork contribution for our Issue 70 cover, perfect for The Cortland Review's standing at the approach into its 20th year of continuous publication.

Professor Emeritus at Orange Coast College and an exhibiting artist and printmaker since the age of 14, Donna is always inspired by her surroundings. She works in multiple layers--often as many as 60 layers--to accomplish a translucency that can't be achieved in other mediums. While she looked at the landscape of Newport Beach's Back Bay from all angles, at all times of day, in all seasons, studying its color changes and immersing herself in its character, she maintains that "an erasure of much of the visual abundance I am seeing helps to distill the essence of the place." What she aims for is "a distillation of both the mundane and sublime..." Every Issue-70 poet and reader will recognize that as his own familiar process to an accomplished poem as well.

Donna, who exhibits both nationally and internationally, is an ongoing Artist-in-Residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley and maintains a studio in Oakland. More of her work can be seen at donnawesterman.com

For this issue, The Cortland Review is also proud to present poet contributors Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Mark S. Burrows, Jari Chevalier, Matt Daly, Martin Jude Farawell, Maeve Kinkead, Jack Kristiansen, Edgar Kunz, Dallas Lee, Mike Lewis-Beck, Laura Marris, Bruce McRae, John Minczeski, Muriel Nelson, Greg Nicholl, Todd Portnowitz, Wesley Rothman, D.E. Steward, Laura Swearingen-Steadwell, Bruce Taylor and Zg Tomaszewski, with new fiction from Robert Kerbeck and Maureen Anne Sherbondy.

As we settle into the beginning of 2016, let us imagine bells enough to celebrate The Cortland Review's 20th year and all of those who have brought us from that beginning place to here: Guy Shahar, Founder and Editor Emeritus, Renee Bandazian, Eric Berlin, Anna Catone, Elizabeth Cornell, Chard deNiord, Christian Gullette, Julie Larios, Dallas Lee, Jim Lewis, Amy MacLennan, David Moody, Greg Nicholl, David Rigsbee, Rick Tracy and Jennifer Wallace.

And it's time to plan now for AWP: The Cortland Review will be the event not to miss at AWP in LA with four dynamic TCR voices to celebrate our 20th: Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gregory Orr and poet and classical guitarist, Jeremy Bass. We hope to see you Friday, 12:00 noon, room 403A in the LA Convention Center.

PLAN NOW, too,
for THE FROST PLACE CONFERENCE ON POETRY AND TEACHING 2016, where
hard-working classroom teachers and highly skilled poet/teachers share time-tested approaches to making poetry an essential element of the classroom, check out
http://frostplace.org/cpt/

for THE FROST PLACE CONFERENCE ON POETRY 2016, a week of "intensive poetry camp" with writers who are deeply committed to learning more about the craft of writing poetry with daily workshops, classes, lectures, writing and revising time in a supportive and dynamic environment, check out http://frostplace.org/conference-on-poetry/.

for generous and focused attention on your poems in workshops and one-on-one meetings with faculty, and the option of a full-length manuscript review, check out THE
FROST PLACE POETRY SEMINAR 2016 at http://frostplace.org/poetry-seminar/

For good poetry and short fiction anytime you feel like it and from anywhere, The Cortland Review has our Poets in Person videos for a special connection with your favorite poets and over 1400 poets and writers archived in audio and text. Grab your coffee and click on some links.

Cheers!
And Happy New Year!
Ginger Murchison
Editor in Chief