As I write to you it’s the last day of 2007, and I find myself sitting in Bellingham’s newest coffee shop on the shores of Bellingham Bay. When you sit upstairs in this cafe, the long narrow windows frame only the water and, with a little imagination, you can believe you’re actually on a large wooden ship, sipping your latte as you drift far from land. Sometimes this feeling is exhilarating, and I often head right upstairs to nab my favorite naugehyde easy chair by the window. But other times I prefer the lower level, or the outside tables, where I can feel myself on the familiar ground I’ve known and loved for a long time now—where I can see everything that’s going on around the perimeter. It seems that much of my life is a pull between these two impulses: to know exactly where I am and where I stand and what will happen next; or rather to embrace the unknown and welcome the flutters of anxiety and pleasure the unknown always engenders.

Dale Gottlieb’s cover image for this issue seems to capture a little bit of this “unknown” feeling: a woman, her back turned toward us as her gaze remains fixed on the water beyond. There’s both hesitancy and wonder in that gaze, in her stance at the precipice.

The last day of the year is naturally a prime time for looking back at what has transpired, and it has been quite a year for the Bellingham Review. We published our 30th anniversary edition, a sizeable tome that quite beautifully showcased what this journal has been happy to offer through all those years: literature of palpable quality, created by writers whose voices demand to be heard. A comprehensive index showed the depth and breadth of the literary landscape we’ve been proud to call our own. We also began spending our NEA grant money, which enabled us to pay our contributors a little bit more and to arrange for a booth at the 2008 AWP conference in New York.  We got the word out on the new Bellingham Review endowment fund, and slowly but steadily our loyal readers have responded (special thanks to Victoria Marie Sprang, Rachael Hanel, Jay and Krista Bates, and Joan C. Lieberman for being the first to contribute. See our ad in the back of this edition if you’re interested in giving.)

As we look ahead to 2008, some key changes come into view for the Bellingham Review. We are, indeed, at an exciting precipice of our own. While the 30th anniversary edition provided a wonderful retrospective, it also showed us the tenor of the future.  Printing costs have soared, and increases in postage rates make mailing the issue a costly endeavor. Producing and mailing that edition strained our resources in a way that woke us up to the realities of small press publishing in the world today.

So, beginning in 2008, the Bellingham Review will experiment with publishing and mailing only one print edition a year (a hefty edition, with same high production values you’ve come to expect), and we will finally overcome our technology phobias and work on making the Bellingham Review website a much more impressive and interactive venue for our readers. We plan to post more of our content online, with special features—such as current book reviews and author interviews—available only in this format. We will have more links to sites that offer information of interest to our readers, such as other literary contests and calls for submissions. And, most importantly, we will improve our database management so that we can communicate with our readers more often and more effectively, providing updates and missives from the editors as the year progresses.

These changes will allow us to continue publishing literature of palpable quality, and to pay our contributors for their efforts. They will allow us to continue being a strong part of the larger literary community, and perhaps to even increase our presence within that community. As with any changes of this magnitude, we can’t predict their effects.  But our earnest hope is that our readers and writers will continue to support us and find much to applaud within our physical and virtual pages.

By the time you read this, your year will most likely have already settled into the rhythms and routines that sustain you.  May you continue to find joy in the present and to embrace all that lies ahead.