by Kathy Hill

On Tuesday, September 18, the day of the pizza debacle, the day co-managing editor Austin Svedjan got into my car and said, “Are you listening to The Office?” I came into the ever-musty English building, Roy Cullen, haranguing five pizza boxes while three liter bottles swung from my left wrist, arm moments from falling off. I think there were exactly twelve things on my mind, ranging from errant wonderings about the future and our ever-impending destruction, to anxiety about the meeting I was in seconds about to run. I’m no public speaker and never have been, but as I rushed into that building and saw familiar faces who automatically came forward to help, as I stepped into room 113 and saw 65 eager expressions, my co-managing editor Quentin Key-Tello, grinning, drawing pictures in Paint around the text, “welcome to the all-staff meeting fall 2k18” I knew that despite everything—anxiety, doubt, hesitation, whatever—I was exactly where I should be.

There is something to be said for fostering community, the impact it has on the success of an organization and the accomplishment of its goals, but mostly I just feel incredibly humbled that I am surrounded by so many wonderful people. The upper editorial staff of the 2018-2019 school year contains some of the best people on the planet. And the associate editors, the size of a small army, new faces I cannot wait to know, old faces I’m thrilled to see again. They’re special.

And you have the amazing opportunity to hang out with some of them! As we get into the fall 2018 semester—it’s already September!—we have the always-exciting opportunity to host a reading series, and the first one is already upon us! Come meet these awesome people at Bohemeo’s (708 Telephone Rd, Houston, TX 77023) this Tuesday, September 25, 7:00 PM, and witness some amazing readers because, naturally, we have three of the best writers out there featured in this event: Rachel Ballenger, Christopher Flakus, and Jessica Rodriguez.

Rachel Ballenger is a writer and translator. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Your Impossible Voice, and elsewhere. She is Fiction Editor of Gulf Coast.

Christopher Miguel Flakus is a poet and writer from Houston, Texas. He has published work with Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Black Heart Magazine, Analog Submission Press, and Iron Lung Press, among others. He was awarded the 2017 Fabian Worsham Award for his fiction. He was Fiction Editor for The Bayou Review’s special prison issue in 2018 which focused on the work of incarcerated writers serving time in Texas prisons. He is currently working on his first novel.

Jessica Rodriguez has lived in space city all her life. Her favorite spots around town are old diners where she can envision herself as an old woman writing her autobiography next to a cup of black coffee in a vinyl leather booth. She is an undergraduate student at the University of Houston who is discovering her potential as a writer thanks to the encouragement of her professors and peers. She writes meditations on identity and what it means in the internet era as a way to question the status quo. She also enjoys writing stories steeped in magical realism and sees the style as a way of solace from the hyper-real.

Along with these perfect people, two of whom I met for the first time through Boldface and feel like a different person ever since, is an open mic where you can come share your work with an energetic and encouraging crowd. It’s a wonderful experience you don’t want to miss, and we hope to see you there.

They said, “Join Glass Mountain,” and I didn’t know exactly what that sentence encapsulated. I thought, sure, join Glass Mountain, read some stuff, talk to some people—it’ll be a nice side activity; it’ll be fun. I didn’t know I would read short stories that have altered my perception of writing as a whole, that I would meet and reunite with people who have become some of the best friends I never imagined having, that I would have the privilege of ending up, somehow, as the editor, witnessing the amazing plans they have, the things they do. It seems funny, in hindsight, that I entered into this world so casually only to be swept away immediately by unstoppable, unapologetic love. And I hope experiencing the magazine strengthens the unstoppable, unapologetic love in you.

Unapologetically,

Katherine Hill, Editor