Letter from the Editor

Cathy Booth Thomas
editor-in-chief

It was Sue Mayborn’s hope back in 1999 that the University of North Texas would one day have a nationally recognized graduate journalism program. Less than a decade later, it’s a done deal, and every year, the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest attracts famed writers such as Gay Talese and Joyce Carol Oates, burnishing the school’s reputation.

MAYBORN is our newest baby. We created MAYBORN for narrative writers and students in the Southwest, and for those who love to read. It’s a place where the known and not-yet-known can gather side by side, sharing nonfiction stories—and how they got them.

Credit for the idea goes to conference poohbah and writer-in-residence George Getschow. His aha! moment came, he says, during a dinner last year with writers Bill Marvel and Craig Hanley. Hanley—winner of the conference book contract in 2006—was raving about the Mayborn conference as the “citadel” of nonfiction storytelling in the Southwest. “The name, Mayborn, means something,” Hanley said. “For storytellers, there is no better brand anywhere.” Getschow, who churns out ideas in his sleep, was struck by another lightning bolt: What the Mayborn still needed was a magazine to showcase not only writers at the conference but also students who wanted to learn at their feet. No magazine like it existed—anywhere, he thought.

MAYBORN looks fairly traditional, but its voice (a tad sassy) is unique. We have articles written by professionals such as Outside magazine veterans Bob Shacochis and Nick Heil, Ken Wells of the Condé Nast startup Portfolio, and Kevin Fedarko, a refugee like me from TIME magazine. N. Scott Momaday, the Pulitzer winning author and poet, sat down for a Q&A despite a heavy schedule writing and caring for his sick wife. Students penned all of the narratives, leaning heavily on themes of the Southwest—boots, guns and … comic book characters. When they weren’t writing or taking pictures, they were creating ad packages or laboring over layouts.

Mitch Land, director of the Mayborn graduate program, has been a constant cheerleader. “MAYBORN provides a rare opportunity for our students to interact with the best narrative writers in America while stretching their own skills to greater levels of excellence,” says Land. Barbara Colegrove, another ex-TIME refugee to Texas, provided the seed money for our new magazine. Our advertisers—thanks, Little Brown, Dallas Morning News, Texas Monthly, and Portfolio!—kept us out of debtor’s prison, no small feat in this day and age of dwindling resources.

MAYBORN’s purpose is to enhance the quality of nonfiction writing, encourage innovation, and inspire a culture of storytelling among journalists in the Southwest. When a student’s writing appears next to that of a Shacochis or a Momaday, it better be good. “Now our students won’t be satisfied until they too harness that power,” says Getschow. “They will always be on the quest. They’ve gotten a taste for good writing.”

Come inside and share the mystery—and, oh yeah, the misery—of narrative writing with us.