December 21, 2004: The Pedestal Magazine.com Celebrates Fourth Anniversary With Many Milestones

Charlotte, NC – The Pedestal Magazine celebrates its four-year anniversary with a record-breaking month in readers, attaining non-profit status, posting the Political Anthology which gave voice to over 700 people throughout the world, and holding two Pedestal Reading E-vents in San Francisco and New York.            
      
In October 2004 over 20,500 readers visited The Pedestal Magazine.com – setting a record for the magazine. This indicates to us that quality online literature is both needed and increasingly accessed. In that same month we posted our Political Anthology – over 700 essays, images, poems, and stories from around the world – all creative expressions of what’s happening in the international political arena. "We wanted to create a venue, if you will, where divergent voices could be brought together in one place. Based on the outpouring of submissions for the issue, we know that there is a need for a creative outlet of this kind and are committed to taking on community issues on a regular basis," stated John Amen, founder and editor of the magazine.  

Two Pedestal Reading E-vents took place this past year. The first was held at Valencia Street Books in San Francisco on September 18, 2004. The event was open to writers who had been published in The Pedestal Magazine. A full house enjoyed hearing 11 readers that evening. The second was held in New York City at Housing Works Used Book Cafe on November 7, 2004. "We were very pleased with the turnout for the event in New York, both in the number of participants – there were 20 – and the number of audience members. We definitely plan to continue these events in the coming years," stated John Amen.

The twenty-fifth issue (fourth anniversary) of The Pedestal Magazine is now online through February 21, 2005. Included is poetry by Arlene Ang, Michael Brosnan, Barry Brummett, G.O. Clark, Adam Cornford, Carolyn Brigit Flynn, Joe Haldeman, Kathryn Hawkins, Kevin Keck, Daryl Muranaka, Eugenia Hepworth Petty, Jordan Sanderson, Steven Ratiner, and Michael Spring; and fiction by Matthew Katz and Grant Tracey. Wynn Yarbrough reviews Philip Levine’s Breath; Bill Yake reviews Robert Sund’s Poems from Ish River Country: Collected Poems and Translations; Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Diane Lockward’s Eve's Red Dress; J. Eric Miller reviews Terri Brown-Davidson’s Marie, Marie Hold on Tight; JoSelle Vanderhooft reviews Catherynne M. Valente’s The Labyrinth; and William Neumire reviews Heidi Lynn Staples’ Guess Can Gallop. Also included are photos from the New York Pedestal E-vent.

The Pedestal Magazine.com, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, is the vision of published writer and entrepreneur John Amen. Mr. Amen’s mission for the magazine is to publish a premier literary and art magazine, exclusively online, featuring new and established writers and visual artists.