Our feature artist is W.D. Chandler Smith, whose photojournalism you will see on these pages. That’s his fire. During his recent Kalamazoo College study abroad experience, the recent graduate documented the revolution he saw unfolding in front of him in Egypt.

In A Good Cause, read about Lisa Rose Starner’s new book, Grand Rapids Food: A Culinary Revolution, about what she found in the local food movement and just how much a small garden can change an entire city. She’s a rebel with a shovel.

We have three author interviews for you. Mariela Griffor, founder and publisher of one of this country’s best poetry presses, Marick Press, is this time the one getting published. She talks about her third poetry collection, The Psychiatrist, and how taking part in a Chilean revolution that sent her into exile shaped her life, shaped her poetry, but won’t shape her future.

Other author interviews include Linda Merlino about her new book, Room of Tears, with an unusual twist on the aftermath of September 11, 2001. We talk, too, to David Poyer, whose battle in The Whiteness of the Whale is one of survival under the attack of a whale, but also in defense of the whales.

Read through our selection of established writers and newcomers in poetry, fiction and nonfiction, plus a novel excerpt. Tim Bazzett and I both have our say in book reviews. Check out our offer on having an author interview with YOU in the next issue of The Smoking Poet. And, as the year draws gradually toward a close, please consider a gift to keep this literary showcase going (see PayPal link at right). We’ve had to cut down from four issues per year to three, and we may have to cut to two … help us stay online. Publishing words that turn the page to flame is our own revolution. Please help us keep that fire burning.

With a good word,

Zinta Aistars

TSP Editor-in-Chief