by Katelin Kelly
I hold the unique position of celebrant. This means I send follow-up emails with “congrats” in the title. This means I memorize contributor names while composing layout. This means I write litanies of praise like this one.
When our editorial board selects pieces to publish, we often ask, “Is this someone whose work we want to promote?” This goes beyond quality standards and extends to a larger commitment over the journal’s lifetime. Who will we want to publish again and again? Whose work is changing the face of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction? What new canon is bursting?
For the past several months, I’ve been reading submissions and asking these questions. One barometer to which I return is Bat City Review’s issue 12. The writing in this issue runs deep and wide-wide, scaling walls while paying tribute to “the fall of many giants.” I wonder now what giants are birthing themselves in the literary hills.
One possible answer: The giants are here. Over the past year, Bat City contributors and editors launched works that stock and shape my personal library. While we house only a small taste of writing in our annual issue, we hope our readers continue to find and love and hold for keeps the works of these prolific writers.
In scanning the vanguard of 2016, here’s some of what we can already see—and if not see it, feel it’s rumble.
A poet and educator, Katelin Kelly was born in Lexington, Kentucky. She earned her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin's New Writers Project where she currently serves as managing editor for Bat City Review.