Foreword April 2023 Publisher’s Note: A Simple Thank You
On April 1, 1998, I walked down Front Street in Traverse City with two editing partners, Anne Stanton and Mardi Jo Link, and opened the door to our new office perched above an ice cream store. Carrying boxes filled with personal items and PCs from home, we organized our working space like many small indie presses: antique doors leveled on saw horses within feet of each other in an open space. Our single purchase was a fax machine and the phone number to go with it. We immediately began faxing a press release announcement of the new review journal we were starting, and requesting review copies from our favorite independent publishers. Within a week we encouraged one last partner, designer Rebecca McClellan, to join us. Just days later, I drove to Nashville to attend our first trade show and sell advertising space with a mockup of our premier issue of Foreword Magazine.
We were very warmly welcomed. At a time when the larger houses were getting most of the review attention, Foreword‘s foundation was built on reviewing literary fiction, poetry, children’s picture books, translations, and unpopular (at the time) topics like climate change, diversity, and multiculturalism from the burgeoning indie publishing industry. Most importantly, we strove to promote voices that were unheard, overlooked, or even silenced.We still give our magazine subscriptions away for free to the people who make the biggest difference with their purchasing power: librarians and booksellers. We have survived with advertising support from small presses since day one.
We’ll be celebrating our silver anniversary with past and current local staff at a local haunt we all frequent. I’ll be personally thanking those who have helped to make Foreword happen over the years. But I didn’t want this important date to pass without acknowledging our industry partners who continue to believe in us with their support. We could not do our jobs without indie presses submitting their best forthcoming titles for review, nor the marketing dollars they manage to pull together to assist our efforts, nor the growing trade readership that keeps us happily engaged in the process.
Thank you.
My gratitude knows no bounds.
We hope to show our appreciation with another twenty-five years (and more) featuring your gorgeous books!
Victoria Sutherland
