The Best of Phosphene (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798991487535)

Published in Houston, Texas, in 1978 and 1979, Phosphene was the city's first literary and arts magazine not connected to a local university or writers' group. With equal amounts of optimism and presumption, the content of the first issue consisted of poetry, essays, fiction, humor, drawing, painting, and photography-a pattern that remained throughout Phosphene's short life. Alas, the attention we received, though promising from a creative standpoint, did not translate into dollars, and Phosphene succumbed to economic malaise, as have hundreds of thousands of magazines and journals before it. But the writing remains, and the best of it appears in this volume. Phosphene helped give a voice to its time and was a part of Houston's literary development and left something behind no matter how obscurely it resides in history's fading memory. In preparing this collection, it dawned on me just how many of the people we published went on to greater achievements in writing or the arts. I like to think that by giving them an early outlet for their efforts, we encouraged them to continue their creative endeavors. So I'm not willing to see Phosphene sink into oblivion because some of the work we published should not be forgotten. It is good work, representing the progress of writers who helped create Houston's nascent literary scene, and I hope this collection can showcase their work once again.