Many of you will no doubt recall that during the ‘60s, Oregon was a much-extolled destination for people seeking what was then (and perhaps now) considered a decent life. So much so that Oregonians wrestled with various methods of discouraging immigration—which if unchecked may have turned its idyll into everyplace else. I don’t remember if they succeeded, but Oregon is still spoken well of, so they might have. Portland, Ore., is the home of Glimmertrain, a wonderful, small literary quarterly dedicated to publishing fine short fiction, usually by writers unknown in the wider world. Also, it regularly features what it calls “silenced voices” (a category of which there seems to be no shortage), spotlighting persecuted, endangered writers from around the world. In this issue Tibetan scholar Dolma Kyab’s 10-year imprisonment for writing about geography and the environment—or as his jailers say, “endangering state security”—is chronicled.
Reading
Glimmertrain, Summer 2008
Many of you will no doubt recall that during the ‘60s, Oregon was a much-extolled destination for people seeking what was then (and perhaps now) considered a decent life. So much so that Oregonians wrestled with various methods of discouraging immigration—which if unchecked may have turned its idyll into everyplace else. I don’t remember if they succeeded, but Oregon is still spoken well of, so they might have. Portland, Ore., is the home of Glimmertrain, a wonderful, small literary quarterly dedicated to publishing fine short fiction, usually by writers unknown in the wider world. Also, it regularly features what it calls “silenced voices” (a category of which there seems to be no shortage), spotlighting persecuted, endangered writers from around the world. In this issue Tibetan scholar Dolma Kyab’s 10-year imprisonment for writing about geography and the environment—or as his jailers say, “endangering state security”—is chronicled.