From the Editors

The fact that failbetter.com was founded by two self-proclaimed Luddites is a philosophical inconsistency we are willing to live with.  Being a bunch of bookstore vagabonds, who in an era of e-books still savor the spiritual grace and soulful texture of the printed page, we first hesitated at the prospects of putting together an e-zine.  The word itself – e-zine – as if it were a sound produced by an involuntary bodily movement – annoyed us.  But forced with a chronic inability to afford even a modest print run, coupled with the regrettable realization that most literary journals may soon go the way of the dodo, we at failbetter.com suddenly thought better of the e-zine option.  After all, evolving from a popular local reading series, failbetter.com has always been about presenting and promoting literature and art to an awaiting audience.  Thus, in our minds, the ideal and the internet are not so diametrically opposed.

And because we’ve so often stood through a needlessly long introduction, where the author is left awkwardly standing at the podium and an eager audience sits both anxious and annoyed, we’ll make this inaugural intro brief.  We simply ask that you read the pages that follow and come back from time to time to see what we’re up to.

Thus, failbetter.com makes its humble, but hopefully entertaining debut….