Welcome!
Notice: This is an archived issue. Some links may not function properly. Please visit the current issue at
http://aroostookreview.umfk.maine.edu/ for complete access to submission guidelines, etc.
From the Web Designer, December 2006
Welcome to the reformatted version of Vol. I, Number 1 (Summer 2006) of The Aroostook Review. I hope you find the new version easier to use. There may still be a stray link error here and there which I plan to smooth out soon. I'll also be tweaking the layout and design over time.
Please note that The Aroostook Review now has an official Library of Congress ISSN number. You can find it in the upper right-hand section of the webpage. This is a unique identifier that can be used by scholars, researchers, abstracters, and librarians to locate our serial and obtain information about it.
Click on the words "The Aroostook Review" in the masthead on any page to return to this page.
Also, for those of you eagerly awaiting Vol. I, Num.2, we plan to have it online shortly. The Aroostook Review is an all-volunteer effort, and the redesign took a bit longer than planned (a death in the family and some unavoidable professional commitments kept us away from it longer than we desired). However, keep a watch in your e-mail (for those of you who have signed up to receive the AR Newsletter) and here for upcoming information on the soon-to-be posted second issue of Volume I. This issue will go to the archive section once Issue 2 goes online.
Your patience has been greatly appreciated!
Summer 2006 Original Welcome
Behind the Scenes...
We have been plugging away, trying to get everything ready for our first issue!
If you notice an error in your posted work, please let us know and we will correct it as soon as possible. Thank you for your long patience with us.
If you haven't already done so, please sign up for the newsletter!
The Aroostook Review was fortunate to get over 180 entries from the first call for submissions.
We have accepted 14 (or so) works of fiction, which were evaluated by Hailee Morin, Doug Morin, Stacy Horner and Will Horner. We have accepted 7 (or so) works of non-fiction, which were evalutated by Joseph Becker. We have accepted around 45 poems, which were evaluated by Geraldine Cannon Becker and M. Kelly Lombardi.
We got a few submissions of art, even though these weren't on our call for submissions. We liked them, so we are expanding our borders for the next issue to include original art and photographs. We will have a few of these in this issue--thanks to artists who moved beyond borders with their submissions. One of these is Cindy Johnson, who currently resides in Caribou Maine with her beautiful family and attends Southern New Hampshire University's DE English Literature program. She is a published illustrator with the Leading Edge Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy,a classic horror movie enthusiast, and an avid lover of anything drenched in chocolate. Another is a multi-talented artist, Adriana DeCastro, who told me: "feel free to act upon all the impulses of your feelings, to share my art with the world..." You may read her poems, see more of her artwork and hear her sing by visiting her website: http://www.adrianadecastro.com/.
We have also decided to spotlight a student writer in each issue. You will find my "Spotlight" in the non-fiction area, and I plan to focus attention on one student writer per issue. This one will feature a writer who has moved beyond many borders in her lifetime, May Shieh, who is an inspirational person.
Speaking of inspirational people, we have two interviews for our first issue. Hailee Morin interviewed a local English teacher, Don Chounard, and we sent around an excerpt from the inteview in our first newsletter. I interviewed our featured poet, Patricia Smith Ranzoni, and you may find this interview in the Nonfiction area. Ranzoni, born in Lincoln, Maine, writes from the borderless history of her ancestors. Her paternal grandmother, a "domestic" from Parker Ridge, New Brunswick, Canada, descended from Scottish and wilderness peoples of the Gaspe. Books: Claiming (1995) and Settling (2000), Puckerbrush Press; and Only Human ~ Poems from the Atlantic Flyway (2005), Sheltering Pines Press. In the interview she responds to questions about what influenced her as a writer and tells us about the best advice she ever got on writing, among other things.
Collaborative writing is another amazing way to bring people together. I have often made booklets of collaborative writing for my creative writing students. It makes every class even more special. Writing can also be healing. This brings me to our next theme for our next issue, the healing power of art--bringing creativity from the chaos. You will be seeing a call for submissions for this theme soon! Sign up to get the newsletter, if you haven't already.
We want to thank you for your patience with us. We have many hats to wear besides our AR hats. We would be nothing without our readers--and the writers who took time to send us their work for our evaluation. We hope you will let us know what you think when you read the first issue, and we hope you will spread the word about our existence. When we get going, we want to keep going.
Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Geraldine Cannon Becker
and everyone at The Aroostook Review
***
Welcome, from Hailee Morin
Hello! My name is Hailee Morin and I am a fourth year English student at UMFK. I would like to join Professor Cannon Becker in welcoming all of our readers to the first issue of the Aroostook Review. I decided to work on this project with Professor Cannon Becker and my husband Douglass, in hopes of giving the students and community members a chance to share their creativity and personal stories with others. I have had the pleasure of tutoring many of the English composition classes and I am astonished at both the creativity as well as variety of stories that I have found on this small campus. Although, I am not a native of "the valley," having the privilege of living in this area for the past eleven years has helped me to discover some of the unique traditions this community has to offer. Douglass and I are going to be traveling around Aroostook County interviewing different members of the community. Thank you all for your support and interest; I hope I will have the pleasure of reading your stories in the future!
