Dear Reader:

Well, here we are, June is cresting and July is breaching on the horizon and we haven't got a clue what to call this issue of Writer's Cramp. At first we thought of the intellectual angle, but nobody here is smart enough to figure out the difference between Objectivism and Romanticism, so we were stymied for a title.

Then somebody piped up that we could do a Horror Issue, and I had to fire him. We did that one three issues ago. The pretty girl with the dark, bedroom eyes, mentioned something about Eroticism, but I'm not sure she was talking about Writer's Cramp. (I'll check into that after work.) She followed up with a suggestion that we do a Humor Issue, I didn't have the heart to tell her we just did one. I didn't see the need to fire her though, the point's already been made, you know?

Then there's the fact that it's summer and everybody's going away for vacations and I want to get away for a while, too, and nobody's very interested in spending a lot of time inside the office coming up with a spectacular theme, so I called my friend Alex Trebek for advice.

He told me, "Bobbo, whenever the writers here at Jeopardy dry up, they say the magic word and everything's fine, again. Potpourri."

You can tell by old Eddie's face on the homepage, that he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this shoddy dismissal of literary ethics for the sake of basking in the sunshine, but what the hell? He's dead and doesn't have to write any of this stuff. It's not like we're taking advantage of anybody. We're still putting out the best electronic literature in Canada.

Therefore, in this, the very first Potpourri Issue of Writer's Cramp, you'll get an eclectic ensemble of humor, adventure, sci fi, pathos, poetry, essays and opinion to dazzle and entertain on those long summer days when it's raining so hard you'd get a concussion if you went outside.

We've got some real doozies for you this time. Something for the kids, something for game show fans, something for mystery buffs, something for history majors, something for the animal rights people to bitch about, oh, just something for everyone. Except for that guy I just fired.

Take a look and click a link and have a great Summer Holiday!

Oh the contest? Try to touch your tounge to your ear. First one who does wins our undying admiration.

RGL