Good Soil Magazine December 2023
Embracing a Monthly Format with Thematic Coherence, Celebrating Literary Gems and the Festive Spirit of Christmas
From the Stacks — by Jim Garlits
Welcome to the December 2023 issue of Good Soil! As I proposed in an earlier article, I’ve wanted to return the magazine to its original monthly format, using a well-thought-out 90-day editorial calendar. Doing so will allow me to more tightly weave together the poems, features, and stories each month to generate a more coherent theme. This issue is a first attempt toward that goal.
One of the pitfalls of my chosen strategy is that I’ve uploaded all of the content for this issue without sending email or app notifications to you, the subscribers. Substack cautions that doing this may result in about a one percent open rate, which is well below our average 52 percent. When you click on the links to the content below, you will generate stats for that content. I will be using the data from your clicks over the next month to see if this works well or needs to be scrapped. Even if this format doesn’t work for you, I’m still several weeks ahead on the editorial calendar, and that will remain so. Please let me know if you like this format by responding below, or by using Substack’s new Chat or Notes features.
That said, there is a lot to celebrate this month. Christmas is at the top of the list, and the poetry and age-appropriate categories reflect this well. My goal was to give a well-rounded picture of how the season and the holy day have been celebrated in different times and places. Can you imagine the lightness of spirit that sailors coming into port must have felt at the end of a long voyage, hearing the church bells chiming out their Christmas greetings? That’s what you’ll find in John Masefield’s “Christmas, 1903.”
Winter also holds an important place in this month’s theme, as the literary wildlands have recently turned from the bright reds and yellows of autumn to bare trees and first frosts, and finally to the eternal childhood expectations of a white Christmas.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the inclusion of not one, but two new authors into the ranks of the “thousand good book authors.” Of highest literary merit is Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose Anne of Green Gables series is even today, as Brittany Inzeo states, a rite of passage for young girls.
Second is the seemingly forgotten Palmer Cox, author and illustrator of The Brownies books. Cox was not only a gifted artist and writer, he was something of an advertising phenom (not that we always think that this is a good thing!), seeing how the Brownie camera was named after his sprites. Look for more Brownie adventures and a sidebar article on the dollar camera that allowed for the democratization of photography in the January 2024 issue. Meanwhile, if you see a Brownie camera in your local flea market or second-hand store, snap it up. It makes a nice conversation piece for your bookshelf or curio, and you can tell visitors the story of how it came to be.
Some of both Cox’s and Montgomery’s works are now included on the Thousand Good Books site hosted by ISSUU, our sister site that hosts tablet-friendly versions of the thousand good books. More will appear there as I get them “cleaned up” and uploaded. Look for them there.
For now, I wish you many glad hours among your own stacks of classic books, a fruitful Advent, and a white Christmas.
Features
Review of the "Anne of Green Gables" Series - by Brittany Inzeo Biograph
Edmund Dulac's Ethereal Illustrations - by Jim Garlits Fairy Tales
The Enchanted Wreath - from Andrew Lang's Orange Fairy Book
Snow White and Rose Red - from The Brothers Grimm Household Stories Fable
The Horse and the Ass - by Jeffries Taylor Poetry
"If" - by Rudyard Kipling
Winter Fancies - by James Whitcomb Riley
Midwinter - by John Townsend Trowbridge
Christmas, 1903 - by John Masefield The Nursery
Christopher Robin Leads an "Expotition" to the North Pole - by A. A. Milne
The Holly and the Ivy - from Walter de la Mare's "Come Hither" Grade School
The Brownies Tobogganing - by Palmer Cox
The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road - by L. M. Montgomery Adolescent
A Jimmyjohn Christmas - by Owen Wister
The Christmas Holidays - by George Eliot Young Adult
Going in Circles - by Leo Tolstoy
The Nymphs - by Ivan Turgenev