“And in the Blue Corner, surviving of more than thirty years of arts funding, late nights and copious amounts of alcohol,

representing a slurry of writers and editors not to mention artists and contributors from all across the known world and still wearing some of the snazziest boxer shorts known to humanity is Going Down Swinging!”

[roar of screaming fans and applause - everyone loves the underdog]

“And in the red corner the challenger is…”

 

Welcome indeed to our first blog.  Hello there. This has been, in the last week, a scramble of spreadsheets and Skype calls but here we are and boy am I pleased to get here. And already it’s time for my first confession. I’ve not edited a blog before. So it’s going to be new for both of us. But I am very excited about what I’m going to be able to do here. It’ll take us a while to get to know each other but in the meantime let me tell you about one of my little obsessions. I love writers. I love hearing what people have written, reading from the first stumbling short story to masterful novels. Not just what is published. I love to sit in a class or a workshop or just around with writer I know and hear their drafts, I love being surprised by their ideas and I love to marvel at the fact that I could never have imagined writing that. It makes me hungry for other peoples work, other peoples ideas, other peoples stories and the unique ways in which we all tell them.

I like seeing a story wherein a germ lies not fully realised, but waiting within the author to grow. I like to see emerging writers inspired and encouraged by those who are already established. So here on this blog is a space made for me. A space where I get to dig into to the deep resources of the Going Down Swinging community and to bring you snippets and dreams and things to ponder. Things you might never have imagined. Or things you didn’t realise you already knew.

As the new editor for the Blue Corner Blog I am looking forward to bringing you new things you haven’t seen and old things to re-discover. I’m excited by the breadth and depth of contributors over these last 33 years and I look forward to stringing together some of the history of a journal to which I myself have contributed.

So please, step in. There’s plenty of room here for everyone. And I look forward to bringing you more.

Meaghan Bell
Editor of The Blue Corner