I want to tell you why this issue has half as many pages as the last, and I want to tell you something about those of us who keep putting this magazine out — that we’re like you, we eat and sleep, we have our laundry and our lists, our masks, our human worries, and our work: it feels necessary, all of it. This magazine is necessary; it’s a mirror, and a window (“As we grow older,” Ansel Adams said, “mirrors become windows”); it’s a life all its own. I’ve been urged to print a “statement of purpose,” but in my life I’ve seen purpose after purpose peel away, and what’s left has no name, or many names, and the same is true for THE SUN. Sometimes all that’s left is determination; it’s rock-hard; it’s a wanting to survive because life wants to be lived. We want this magazine to live. We’ve attracted new readers, but our income has not increased sufficiently to pay for yet another issue as large as those we’ve been publishing. We were faced with the choice of suspending publication altogether or cutting back the size of the magazine. Better to live.
We’ve used the word “struggle” so much it’s become a cliche. Are you predictably anticipating our predictable request — that you subscribe, or subscribe for a friend, or send us a donation? Predictable as breathing, as long as you keep breathing. Better to keep asking.
THE SUN is a non-profit organization. You can write to us at 412 W. Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514. Subscriptions are $12 a year. Donations are the height and breadth of your imagination and your pocketbook.
— Sy
