By Lorna Reese

Special to the Islands’ Weekly

Last summer, I sat at my computer reviewing submissions to SHARK REEF, the online literary magazine I’d launched nearly ten years earlier with three fellow Lopez writers. I’d worked with a guest co-editor on each issue, but for several years, I’d been doing all the promotion work alone. On this day I was dismayed. And frustrated. Though several lovely poems waited in SHARK REEF’s email box, there were not enough good submissions of prose to put together an issue I could feel proud of. Wearily, I considered letting the magazine die.

But when I mentioned this to members of my writing group, one of them, Iris Graville, pleaded with me to give SHARK REEF another chance.

“SHARK REEF has been a great venue for emerging and experienced writers locally, and I know there are many more out there seeking publishing opportunities,” Iris said. “We just need to get the word out to them about this long standing, high quality journal, and I’d like to be part of it.”

She also said she’d help me market SHARK REEF more widely. Iris learned a lot promoting her book “Hands at Work” so this was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Now, a year later, SHARK REEF’s summer issue — the first one of our second decade — is online and features writing -— rich, funny, sad, heartfelt -— from all over the country. Getting to this point has been an exhilarating and rewarding trip.

No one remembers exactly whose idea it was to start an online literary magazine; it just seemed to float up at a meeting of our then one-year-old Lopez Writers Guild. Alie Smaalders, Laurie Parker and I had started the Guild in January of 2000 as a way to support and promote Lopez writers by organizing a host of writerly events and programs. But web-zines were beginning to proliferate and the three of us ran with the idea of an online literary journal we called SHARK REEF.

Back in 2001, we solicited submissions from Lopez writers and artists, and Leta Currie Marshall said yes when we asked if she would share her expertise with the electronic layout.  We chose a name — for a very short time it was to be Sirens! — and applied for grants for Internet costs. The rest of the work we all did for love.

A few months later, we were ready to launch SHARK REEF, which we did in style in June 2001 by projecting the first issue onto Lopez Center’s large screen. This hoopla was followed by a wine and cheese reception. We had started a magazine.

For the first few years, only Lopez Islanders were eligible to submit to SHARK REEF because we felt they boasted enough talent to fill countless issues.

“Writers grow on the trees here,” Alie said.

However, we didn’t always get enough submissions so, a couple of years later, residents or visitors to any San Juan Islands could submit.

Along the way, SHARK REEF published two issues a year, plus a children’s issue, a special 9/11 edition and even a print book of selections from the first few issues, called Currents.

Last year, our magazine welcomed serious writers and artists, wherever they live. With that opening, submissions quadrupled. We were delighted to receive submissions from all over the U.S. and from five other countries.

For the first several years, Laurie, Alie, Leta and I edited the magazine. After that I always worked with a co-editor — a big part of the fun of this enterprise — and this time Ann Norman filled that post, working with me to review all prose pieces. With the increase in submissions, we asked John Sangster and Elizabeth Landrum if they would co-edit the poetry for a couple of issues. Judith Connor from St. Paul, Minnesota, joined as art editor. Her art is featured in the new summer issue.

Throughout this history of SHARK REEF, I’ve been saying “we” because, when we expanded submission eligibility, publishing the magazine once again became more of a collaboration. Iris, of Heron Moon Press, became publisher last year, and the writing group she and I have been in for 12 years now serves as an informal editorial board.

With help from our webmaster, Adrienne Rice of Cloud Islands, we’ve created a Facebook page (Shark Reef Literary Magazine) and modified our website (sharkreef.org) so readers can “like” us as well as subscribe (for free) to receive e-mail updates.

SHARK REEF produces a summer and winter issue with March 31 and September 30 submission deadlines. Previous issues are archived on the website, and readers can search easily for favorite writers without having to open every past issue.

So the evolution of our magazine continues. But no matter how many more issues are published, all of us at SHARK REEF will persist in our efforts to give serious writers a place to see their work published. We hope local writers and artists will join us for this exhilarating ride. For more information, contact me at editor@sharkreef.org.