Welcome to
Tom's Voice Magazine...

and to Issue 7.

Every issue is special, and this is no exception. If you are a parent, please read the writing of Tom 7.1. This is a unique contribution from a mother whose daughter's struggled for a long time against peer pressure and addiction.

I'd also like to introduce J Aaron Goolsby, who has agreed to write for us each issue. A strong writer, his first piece is a straight, no nonsense account of why, in his experience, the Eighties generation turned to drugs.

Prolific, idiosyncratic writer Matthew Licht, whose writing I have admired for a while now, has sent us an excerpt from his novel in progress.

We have poetry, incredibly moving, from the writer, editor, artist, Beverly Jackson, and from Jo Waterworth.

There's masses here, some strong, excellent stuff… but I must also mention by name Gary Beck, a playwright whose work has toured off Broadway and been used in schools and at outdoor venues in the US .

Gary emailed me: “I sent this piece because of your commitment to issues that concern me. For many years I ran programs for homeless families with children, and for prison youth, where drugs and alcohol ravaged their lives."

Thanks Gary , and thanks to all the contributors.

Vanessa

Tom's Voice is a ‘different' magazine.

It is full of writing by men and women trying hard to kick long-term drug and/or alcohol addiction, and writing by people whose lives have been irretrievably changed by the addiction struggles of family or friends.

Why ‘Tom's Voice'?

Because a good guy called Tom tried hard to overcome heroin addiction in 2003. He was one of my first students. He battled through three months in a tough rehab. and while he was there discovered that he could write wonderful wacky poetry and prose poems. Tom died not long after he finished at rehab. and beside his body was a poem. His own version of “to everything there is a season.”

HE HAD A VOICE.

Addiction is a cruel enemy. To fight it you need some strong weapons. But sometimes the weapons to fight the cruellest enemies seem to be the smallest things. A pencil. A scrap of paper.

Is ‘Tom's Voice' literary? It depends on your definition of ‘literary'. If you are using words to communicate something that is searingly important to you, and if you are allowing that work to be displayed for the world to read, isn't the end result ‘literary' in some measure?

Our writers who are currently in rehab are all going to call themselves ‘Tom', whether male or female. They are very brave people but also very vulnerable, and we want to protect them.

Why are the writers' bios set before their writing? Because we want you to understand what these writers are battling against. Not just physical issues, but their own history.

Tom's Voice Issue 1 contains work by a writer who has won a national prize for his prose. Writing by a published poet and columnist who lost her partner to heroin. Writing by a man whose life was changed by having a couple of paragraphs published by a literary print magazine. Writing by a guy who has had the guts to go back to University after kicking addiction. Writing by a woman who won't be allowed to see her kids over Christmas. Non-fiction by a man who lost his adored big brother to drugs. Fiction by a man who spent much of his life in squats surrounded by drugs. And more.

If you, or your friends have work that would fit into Tom's Voice, we want to read it. We are unable to pay you, but you'll have a voice.

Best wishes

Vanessa Gebbie