Dear Villagers,


This has been a brutal year, filled with chaos, fear, disease, and death. So much death it’s hard to process. And slipping into the terrible tally was the death of our founder Firestone Feinberg. He started what we know as Verse-Virtual in 2014, and was the sole owner and editor of the journal, as well as the central support of the community for over 5 years. Health issues sidelined him in the fall of 2019. And that is when the genius of his efforts became most apparent. Rather than allow the journal and community to simply fade away, a dedicated group of “villagers” made the decision to carry on. We have no better way to honor him.

The July issue of Verse-Virtual will be a tribute issue to dear Firestone. It will feature his poetry and paintings, and a page of tributes from the community that he built. Because of the structure of the issue, there will be NO submission call for poems. We will accept tributes from those who wish to submit them. We will attempt to publish all of them, but will exercise our editorial discretion when it comes to length and appropriateness.

Firestone, we miss you. May your memory be a blessing.