ou should write a book!"

 

 

It sounds like a compliment but can seem like a sentence. Writing a book is a daunting task. Years go by, sometimes decades, as the writer wrestles with the experience and tries to render it on the page.

 

"Why should I write a book?" I often ask myself in the early stages of such a project. Why sink hours of time, energy, and money into a monumental task that may not get published and if it does get published, may not make more than fast-food wages?

 

I started Crush years ago when I began writing about wine. As I accumulated magazine and newspaper stories on the subject, I sensed a pattern, but pretended I wasn't writing a book. I was simply writing a series of stories. Having published four books, I knew how much work was involved and was reluctant to undertake it.

 

But as I kept writing about wine, the manuscript ballooned. I could no longer fool myself. I was writing a book. It was up to me to shape the parts into something larger and more coherent.

 

As I worked, I felt the thrill of seeing the larger architecture of a story emerge. Writing it forced me to look at my own life and others' lives and find meaning, clarity, pattern, and significance, the end and purpose of human life. In so doing, it provided immeasurable rewards.

 

Writing a book changes you and changes the world. Books are key artifacts of culture. They shape the larger dialogue of our world. They are victories and should be celebrated.

 

Thus, it is with great pleasure I include in the 19th issue of The Writer's Workshop Review an excerpt from Crush and an interview about it by Mike Medberry, an old friend from the University of Washington's MFA program. In addition, this issue features remarkable stories: Laura J. Campbell's profoundly moving interstellar tale, "The Last City"; Andrew McBride's "The Art of Eating Poi," on the need for comfort food in a sometimes inhospitable world; Tim Bascomb's "Offsides! Yankee Fans in a Premier Place," a celebration of the colorful subculture of English Premier League soccer; Elizabeth Danek's "The Offensive Line," which proves that romance can bloom in the unlikeliest of places.

 

I'd like to thank the following people for their help with this issue: all the writers who contributed, Managing Editor Kathleen Glassburn for keeping things on track, as well as Irene Wanner, Kate Jackson, and Elisa Stancil for careful reading of submissions and editing of manuscripts.

 

We hope you enjoy the 19th issue of The Writer's Workshop Review. Please let us know what you think, and if you have a story that might work for us, please send it. We read all year and welcome submissions at any time. We look forward to hearing from you!