Is there such a thing as social momentum in this world? Almost a year ago a good friend of mine from Singapore asked me if I wanted to be a part of his new literary journal that was going to focus on international literature and translation. (Okay, he didn’t ask me so much as tell me that I was, out of the blue, the Special Feature editor.) It’s called Asymptote and the fourth issue of the year is going to come out this month. 

I’m no longer the Special Feature editor (it was too much work—I am working a paid job almost full time and trying to write and always busy falling in love…) but I’m still on staff as a contributing editor which has meant I’ve done a little bit of everything. Recently I chose the excerpt from Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s excellent new novel The Truth About Marie that’s going to run in the October issue. I’ve also been working with a writer on her short feature article about an Albanian novelist named Elvira Dones. 

Anyway, I wrote all that to say that the new issue is shaping up. Lydia Davis sent us some translations from the Dutch (and if you’ve read any of her small pieces about cows, you’ll know why she was drawn to translate them). AND we’ve gotten two write ups this week. (We’re rolling!) The first was a feature in Publishers Weekly, which was sourced from an interview with that good friend of mine from Singapore. It talks about how we’re unique and who we are. The other was a brief review on the Paris Review’s blog, where we’re one of their latest staff picks (fourth paragraph). We’re called a “new and impressively eclectic online magazine,” which sounds exactly like something I’d want to be involved with.