December 2017 Vol. II No. XII
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
Who we are
Better Than Starbucks
Founded 1995 as Scene, Arts of the Treasure Coast,
Renamed 1998 Abundance, a Harvest of Literature, Life & the Arts
Revived 2016 as Better than Starbucks
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Staff, listed in order of when they joined.
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Anthony "Uplandpoet" Watkins ​Publisher, Founder, Editor-in-Chief
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Vera Ignatowitsch Managing Editor, Formal & Rhyming Poetry Page Editor, Layout & Copy Editor
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Kevin McLaughlin Haiku Page Editor, Spiritual Adviser, Poetry Mentor
S. Ye Laird Translations Page Editor
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Suzanne Robinson Poetry Main Page Editor
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Tendai Rinos Mwanaka African Poetry Editor
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Rameeza Nasim Asian Poetry Editor
Before You Know it, the One Man Band is an Orchestra
For the first four issues, this space ran on a bit about the publisher. At first, this was due to the fact that there was nobody here but the publisher. Now, as you can see, we have added several staff members so that we are a fairly fully staffed journal.
First came my trusted mentor and spiritual advisor, Kevin McLaughlin to edit our Haiku Page, then Vera Ignatowitsch to edit Formal & Rhyming Poetry.
S. Ye Laird is the editor of a now regular feature, Translations, and
Suzanne Robinson officially agreed to accept the title of what she has been all along, the final judge of what goes on the General Poetry Page, look for a greater depth and breadth than anything I could offer when I was trying to wear all the hats!
We have also added and International Poetry page, with Tendai Mwanakos as editor of African Poetry, and Rameeza Nasim as editor of Asian Poetry.
Contact us at: betterthanstarbucks2@gmail.com
Please continue to direct your submissions, questions, and thoughts to betterthanstarbucks2@gmail.com, but you might want to put your work to the attention of whichever page editor seems most likely to want to see it. We will be looking for submissions of interesting translations, watch S. Ye Laid's Translations page for details.
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Staff we have yet to find, but are actively looking for!
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We are still missing a few pieces of the puzzle. At least two, maybe three or four or more.
The certain two are as follows:
A grant writer (we are a non profit in fact, but not in law), we need someone who knows how to help in gathering funding to first pay contributors, and then, possibly, though none have ever asked for a dime, to the various editors.
Second, we need a tech person who can build us the mythical chat room discussion forum from Shelfari, or even something better.
Our own S Ye has helped us get started with a pretty nice "off the shelf" forum, from which she has created a easy to use and appealing to the eye home for our discussions! We hope to start seeing these forums getting a lot of use. Please find the link at Reviews/Forum. But we are still looking for a coder who wants to help!
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The maybes, let's talk:
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Thirdly and Fourthly, and maybe even Fifthly
(is fifthly a word? It looks a lot like filthy.)
We are looking for:
an interviewer
a book reviewer,
a movie reviewer/critic
and either an art page editor or an art critic or both.
Mentors, Ghosts, and Spiritual Editors
Neither of these wonderful ladies are on our staff, as both are deceased, but they put this little muddy footed boy on the path to the love of the written word.
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As of December 4, 2016,
we can add the ghost of
my father. He never quite
understood why anyone would work so hard
for something that didn't make any money,
but he always supported my efforts to create
a place for poetry, literature and art.