4 February 2008
by Robert Whitsitt

Some of the works we publish are rough in content or language. We decided early on that the paramount consideration was literary value, and that we would not censor if the literary value was there. I've never felt that any of the roughness we published was merely for shock or titillation. It always seemed to me to be necessary to the work, and no one has ever mentioned this as a problem.

In this issue, though, I am somewhat put off (not exactly offended, but rubbed the wrong way) by the content of a particular paragraph in one of the works. I'll be interested in seeing if any readers write and identify the paragraph.

That aside, I feel (as I have for several issues) that we keep doing better and better. I hope you agree!

19 April 2008
by Robert Whitsitt

This issue, like the last two, is late. We're supposed to go out quarterly, the first Mondays of February, May, August, and November. But due to various events (not the least of which is my travel), they have been late. I hope no one is even considering that we are planning to end this. After 10 years, Amarillo Bay is a major and important part of our lives, as I hope it is with you.

We are, however, considering how to work around the busy schedules of our editors, all of whom are in academe and thus are very busy this time of the year. Jerry and I can't imagine how we've gotten this far before we noticed the problem. Sigh.

But that's our problem: We'll figure it out. You, on the other hand, only have to read this issue, which is one of the most fun, weirdest, and sexiest in some time. Enjoy!

18 August 2008
by Robert Whitsitt

This issue, like the last three ( ! ), is late. This time it was because of a family trip that my wife and I made at a time required by family events. I regret the delay.

After some discussion we found that the editors, like all professors, were under a lot of strain due to our requirement of releasing the second issue of the year on the first Monday of May when they were dealing with end-of-school-year necessities. To remedy that, we've rescheduled the May issue to be the third Monday of May. The other three issues will continue to be published the first Mondays of February, August, and November.

This issue, as always, contains works that I love and works that I am not so smitten with. If I loved all of them, I suspect some of our readers would dislike them all, so I'm pleased that we continue to present a large range of works so that every issue will appeal at least in part to each of our readers. In fact, I suspect most of our works appeal to nearly everyone, as they do with me.

I feel about the same about Broadway plays. In the last two years my wife have seen four plays in New York. All were fun, while one (Thurgood, starring Laurence Fishburne) was one of the best plays we've ever seen. (We have multiple subscriptions and see several dozen plays a year, including all the plays available at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, so saying a play is one of the best we've seen is saying a lot!) The other plays (Avenue Q, Spamalot, and Young Frankenstein) were certainly worth our while, but Thurgood was simply astonishing.

I hope you enjoy this issue!

18 August 2008
by Robert Whitsitt

It seems like Jerry and I just started Amarillo Bay, but it was actually in 1999, and here we are about to enter 2009. Oh, my. After publishing just under 400 works, I think we are doing astonishingly well. Our dedicated editors (Jerry Craven, Richard Moseley, Jeffrey DeLotto, and Rebecca Balcárcel) and our invaluable copy editor (Denise Durham) should be very proud of themselves. We've had this team since July of 2006, and all work together comfortably. That this team functions so well together is particularly amazing since I have only met Jerry in person. The rest I've worked with only by e-mail. And I haven't actually seen Jerry in more than 10 years. Isn't the Internet amazing?

My prime "vice" in retirement is poker. I play online, and also in a nearby public cardroom. (That's legal in California because it was ruled decades ago that poker is a game of skill. Basically, that's because you aren't playing against the casino: you're playing against the other players. The casino makes its money by taking a small amount of money - usually $4.00 - out of each pot. Since a pot can be over $100 in a relatively modest game, that's not all that much of a loss.) Anyway, I play close to 40 hours a week - so I guess it's may job! - and this year am making about $2.00 an hour. I think it's a great pastime, and since I make money at it, it's much less expensive than most hobbies!

I also spend a few hours a week helping to teach elderly people how to use a computer, with a group called SeniorNet. I described that in more detail in the 5 February 2007 entry in the About section.

Finally, I spend about 20-40 hours every three months to produce Amarillo Bay. I spend substantially less time on that than on poker, and about the same on SeniorNet. However, Amarillo Bay is by far my most rewarding task. Not in money (I pay all expenses whether or not we get much appreciated donations) or in what people say to me (I rarely hear any comments about Amarillo Bay). The reward is that I know, by looking at the Web logs, that thousands of people every month are reading our stories. I am buoyed by that.

Enjoy the issue!

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