Painting: Kai McCall, Drop. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Spring Issue 2008

Welcome. It’s a day of note here in our little shipyard. The cranes are still. The bottle of champagne has been broken across the bow. And this first issue of Shipwrights has glided down the slipway to you.

Just as actual shipwrights spend great time and attention applying the tools and techniques of shipbuilding in order to launch a finished vessel, so too has each short story, poem, and essay in this first issue been carefully crafted. Its author has applied the various tools of literary craft: metaphor, characterization, and the construction of narrative voice, to name but a few. She has used these tools, along with the imaginative process, to make something new, something that did not exist before in this particular way. It’s no coincidence that the Greek word poet means maker, nor that the Anglo-Saxon word wright also does. Both types of maker are really one and the same, as they both wrench something new from the scraps of history, experience, and imagination.

So, thank you again for coming along. We hope you’ll sit down with your laptop or desktop and enjoy the literature we’ve selected. Of course, whether you will actually read onscreen is one of the questions we ponder. These days, most of us read online frequently enough—e-mail, blogs, news sites—but whether we read short stories, poems, and essays online is perhaps another question. Of course, it may just be a matter of time, and technological development, before reading online this way replaces the paper technology we’ve become accustomed to since Guttenberg started the last wave in 1450. Yes, I can imagine you book romantics wincing out there. But isn’t it just a matter of time? Isn’t change the only certainty there is? Anyway, whether it’s a stone tablet, papyrus, or digital information, it’s still reading. So, I suggest you grab a beverage and settle in with your cozy screen.

What you’ll be reading here in Shipwrights are the best examples of de-centered English-language literature we could find just now. This means new writing from beyond the Anglosphere of the United States, the British Isles, and other Anglophone countries. The journal is young, but we still received many more submissions than we had space for in this first issue. This should come as no surprise. With the combined number of global second- and foreign-language English speakers now tripling that of native English speakers (1.2 billion to 375 million respectively, according to the British Council), there are thousands of excellent de-centered authors out there. Shipwrights hopes to be a showcase for the best of them.

In reading this de-centered writing, questions are likely to arise. How is this English-language literature different from the Anglosphere texts we’re used to? Is it, in fact, different? Is anything gained or lost in these potential differences? I won’t venture answers to these questions here and now. Ultimately, you readers, and perhaps future researchers, will be the ones to answer them. You may also ponder more precise definitions of “de-centered.” But because Shipwrights is a creative writing magazine, not a linguistics journal, the definition will remain broad.

Not all contributors to this issue are second- and foreign-language writers. That’s because Shipwrights, being located in Sweden, is also committed to representing the community of Anglophone expatriate writers living in Scandinavia. Like expatriates generally, these writers are also de-centered in their own way, at times feeling marginalized in spite of their English mother tongue.

This inaugural issue is fairly diverse. Since it is the first, and because the journal is still relatively unknown, it contains more work by “local” writers than future issues are likely to. Nevertheless, it features work by writers from India, Turkey, Italy, China, England, Mexico, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. It also features a substantial variety in both style and subject. In the short fiction, you’ll find both the tragic and the comic. In the poetry, you’ll find both the formal and the “free.” In the literary nonfiction, you’ll find both the memoir and the personal essay. Many of the writers, but not all, are being published here for the first time.

Finally, we do plan to have a commentary/critical writing section as a regular part of the journal, but it wasn’t in the cards for this issue. We received too few submissions of excellent critical essays. The next issue, Autumn 2008, should be on track with a critical writing section.

Thanks to: Melisa Vázquez, who has been more than an exceptional and trustworthy first-mate; Micke Rundberg, who has patiently dealt with our many technical demands; Caroline Chojnacka for her time and eye in creating the look of the website; the Shipwrights advisory board for helping to set a steady course; and the student editorial boards that have contributed to this issue. Lastly, thanks to Malmö University’s School of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) for its support in establishing the creative writing courses that have led to Shipwrights and also for the seed funding needed to get the project started.

All of the above matters aside, our goal is to present you, the reader, with a meaningful reading experience—a seaworthy vessel. What we really hope is that you’ll be entertained, moved, or challenged by what you read here. We’d love to hear from you in the form of letters to the editor or any other comments you’d like to make. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like, what you think about our endeavor. Our e-mail address is shipwrights@mah.se. A paper mail address can be found in the submissions guidelines.

The ship is launched!

Darius Degher
March, 2008

Painting
Kai McCall, Drop. Oil on canvas, 2008. Reproduced with permission from the artist. www.kaimccall.com