A milestone, my venerable Random House Unabridged Dictionary says, is “a significant event in the life, progress, [or] development of a person, nation”—or, I’ll add here, a unique and adventurous magazine. This issue is an important Persimmon Tree milestone. The magazine’s 75th, “Diamond Jubilee,” issue, it is a tribute to the creativity, experience, and wisdom of older women around the globe. It is also a salute to the inspiration and dedication of Founding Editor Nan Gefen and the dauntless band of women who, for just over eighteen years, have established and nurtured the international body of readers, writers, artists, and musicians who, together, form the growing Persimmon Tree community. All in all, this issue—and the many women whose work appears in its pages— give proof to the statement poet Emily Dickinson included in an 1874 letter: “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”
Milestones also provide opportunities for looking back to see how far we’ve come—and to envision the opportunities and challenges the future may hold. In the Special Section celebrating this 75th-issue milestone, you’ll find essays by and about past and present Persimmon Tree staff, principally celebrating how the magazine has grown and developed. Several of these essays include links to articles in past issues, now preserved in Persimmon Tree’s Archives, which hold the contents of all 74 previous issues and are freely available to our readers.
Present challenges—as well as future hopes and fears—are subjects of this issue’s Forum, which addresses “The Assault on the Cultural and Intellectual Life of America.” Over the past several months universities, libraries, and organizations devoted to scientific research that benefits the nation and the world have been rocked by a variety of measures calculated to temper their independence and devotion to progress and truth. The nation’s creative arts and organizations supporting them are increasingly besieged as well, their funding removed or threatened, freedom of expression and artistic exploration under a deepening cloud. Contributions to the Forum poured in. I urge you to read and add to the discussion on this vital issue.
“To create one’s own world in any of the arts takes courage,” painter Georgia O’Keeffe once said. She was not speaking primarily of the courage to create in the face of outside pressure to comport with “groupthink,” but of the courage it takes to reach into oneself and express personal truths in prose, poetry, the visual arts, and music. This issue, like the 74 that preceded it, is a tribute to the continuing courage of older women who dare to create. In our Creative Lives section, Elizabeth Zimmer writes a tribute to the valor and accomplishments of photographer Dona Ann McAdams and dancer Naomi Goldberg Haas. Poetry Editor Cynthia Hogue introduces Guest Poetry Editor Deirdre O’Connor, who, in turn, presents the compelling work of international poets. Humor, quirkiness—and a pinch of outrage—characterize the cards and illustrations of Alice Briggs, interviewed by Art Editor Greta Berman. The Fiction section includes a half dozen stories that range from lacerating to supernatural, while the six essays in Nonfiction are packed with thought-provoking revelations.
So much to enjoy and contemplate—and to remark upon, using the Comment pane at the end of each page. We urge you to return again and again, and to let us know what you think. In the meantime, in view of the challenges we now face, I leave you with the words of poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019): “I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.”
Editor-in-Chief
Spanning four decades, two families, and the ever-changing visitors to a New England coastal town, Summer People is a story of intersecting lives, buried secrets, and unexpected moments of grace.
Catharine Conor and Tom Osborne meet on Harvard's library steps in the early eighties and fall deeply in love. Tom, struggling with mental health challenges, is expelled after an impulsive act of campus rebellion. Pregnant Catharine follows him to London, where circumstances alter their lives. Eventually settling on the coast of Massachusetts, they purchase an old house and raise a son, Toby. A batch of forgotten letters reveals a poignant connection to the house's previous owner, whose own son died tragically.
With compassion and complexity, Summer People portrays love's resilience and the unexpected ways human lives impact each other.
L.H. Finigan’s novel “...may remind readers of...Sherwood Anderson’s classic Winesburg, Ohio...and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, ... given its sweeping presentation of several characters in a small town...An ambitious and affecting interweaving of troubled characters’ lives.” - Kirkus Reviews
Learn more about the author at lhfinigan.com
Available from Amazon, Bookshop, and your local independent bookstore.
Most recently, Gayle Ann Weinstein is the winner (through the Alliance for Jewish Theater) of a regrant from Canvas. She has been a resident at Ragdale, the artists’ colony in River Forest, IL, and is a recipient of a Creative Writing Certificate from the University of Chicago’s Graham School. Her poetry has been published in a number of journals, including in Persimmon Tree's