Ping-Pong Magazine, Henry Miller Library, Big Sur, California
Dear Reader,
I am writing at the end of an amazing year. What you are holding in your hands is the culmination of an idea which began in a little cabin next to the Pacific where Henry Miller’s best friend, Emil White, decided Henry’s work was worth a memorial.
Henry Miller wrote volumes and volumes of letters, some of which are archived at the library. He was, if nothing else, prolific. This got me thinking about writers and writing. Why do we do it? Who will see it? Does it matter? Anais Nin’s unexpurgated diaries were published posthumously, as well as most of Emily Dickinson’s poems. A writer, it seems to me, is an artist who will write whether anyone ever sees it or not: this is secondary to the form. Some writers are published in spite of themselves, by people who believe that what they have to say needs to be heard. Others struggle for years to get their work into the public eye, only to be shut out by mainstream publishers who are becoming more and more homogeneous.
Ping-Pong is a journal with an international bent. What is fascinating in the cities of the world is the dialogue I see happening. Berlin is a beautiful city that encapsulates all that is creative and destructive in humanity. New York City stands tall with two balled-up fists ready to take on whatever comes its way. Tokyo delivers a unique fashion aesthetic which designers scramble to follow. Paris is an older woman who knows she’s sexy, and Venice, well, its beauty leaves one with a mouth open, feet sore and pockets emptied.
Ping-Pong is not so much a conductor of this beautiful orchestra of artists you will find herein, but rather a floodlight that illuminates their talent.
We feel that having a literary journal that does not include a zeitgeist of the global literary scene is as egotistical as having a world series that only features one country. Like Dorian Gray, America begins to see itself in the mirror the world holds up to it. Artists continue to process the world for us with keen insight into the human predicament through their stories, poems, photographs and paintings. Henry Miller believed in truth, and his writing made it easier for the rest of us to speak our minds freely. We here at Ping-Pong believe it’s important to continue his legacy.
Enjoy!
Maria Garcia Teutsch
Editor-in-Chief
