Be Our Guest

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

As an editor, I am a slave to the mail. My desk always looks like a wartime leaflet drop zone, covered with a jungle of papers. About 80 percent of my mail consists of letters to one of Oasis Newsfeature's popular columnists. The rest are from people wanting to become one of Oasis Newsfeatures popular columnists. I get people pitching columns about every imaginable topic: from parenting to witchcraft to fishing. Yawn. If you are a fisherman, please don't send me a column proposal about it. Like the fish, I'm not biting! Sometimes the work is from a polished professional with top-notch captivating credentials. Other times, the column proposals come from someone who tells me what a great "w-r-I-t-e-r" they are. Sigh.

Sifting through the slush pile is like panning for gold in a Colorado creek. Only occasionally, am I rewarded with a glimmer of gold amidst the rocks. It is this glimmer of gold that will the basis of a new section on this website. Oasis Newsfeatures will now offer a new section featuring some of the top-notch talent that send in their work for possible syndication. You, the readers, will get to vote on whether you want to see more of this writer's work, or whether I should mothball them.

I'm hoping the new section will serve as a potential launching pad for new writers and fresh voices.

Our first guest writer tackles a topic which many of us might prefer to ignore until the last possible moment in our lives. But as society ages, terrorism seeps onto our shores, and medical care grows more sophisticated, death is a topic that is increasingly coming out of the conversational closet. Witness the popularity of HBO's hit "Six Feet Under" about a fictional funeral home in California. The guest columnist pens a piece called "Good Grief" and it deals with the many intricacies of death.

To read a sampling of "Good Grief" by Gabriel Constans and to learn more about the author, CLICK HERE. Be sure to let me know what you think about the column!

Kevin Williams
Executive Editor
Oasis Newsfeatures