Issue 14 Volume Two, Winter 2009-10
The radio is on as I begin writing this. It's Sunday and the talk is about the ongoing scandal of ministerial expenses. I need to switch it off. As usual, what passes for the editorial is one of the last pieces to be put in place. On the way into the office this morning, I was thinking I could try to write it as some sort of clever satire of all these recent revelations about how taxpayers' money has been squandered and abused. Oh yes, The Stinging Fly editorial team has spent the last couple of years hopping in and out of limousines, being chauffeured between poetry readings. We'd never have managed without the private jet-how else would we have got to all those festivals around the country? And, to tell you the truth, I'm getting a bit fed up with that fancy restaurant on the Green, but it really is the only place to go when we want to have a serious discussion about submissions and ideas for the next issue. The staff can be a bit dim though: how many times do we have to tell them that we don't need receipts?
The other thing going through my head as I walked in this morning was Stephen Foster's, 'Hard Times Come Again No More.' I've just looked up the lyrics: Tis the song, the sigh of the weary, / Hard times, hard times, come again no more / Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; / Oh hard times come again no more. A bit melodramatic maybe.
There is a letter on my desk from the Arts Council. A similar letter has gone out to all organisations that receive funding from them. The letter offers us funding for the first four months of 2010-at a level that is down about a third on this year's figure. It warns us that some organisations will not receive any further money beyond April 2010. Meanwhile, the Arts Council is continuing to lobby the government in advance of its December budget, arguing the case for its allocation not to be cut any more than it has been already.
We now have to wait until January to find out what will happen. But we also have to seriously consider just how we might manage if our 2010 grant does, in fact, end up being cut by a third. (I balk at considering the possibility of an even worse outcome.) We are not strangers to surviving on a shoestring, but where exactly can we save money? Will there be an office to walk to?
So instead of clumsy attempts at satire, or quoting lines from nineteenth-century laments, what this editorial should really be doing is telling you this: we need your support, now more than ever. If you enjoy this issue and believe in the work that The Stinging Fly is doing, please do consider taking (or renewing) a subscription, getting one for a friend, or perhaps becoming a patron. Any contribution at all will be appreciated and will make a difference.
Declan Meade
Editor (stingingfly@gmail.com)
We will be accepting submissions from January to March 2010.
