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The Process

The Hal Grutzmacher’s Writers’ Exposé and Photography Jubilee celebrates the creative process – each photograph, each poem, and each story represents time, patience, and skill from a budding or seasoned artist. This special issue of Peninsula Pulse, my favorite of the year, calls for the same care and energy, the same attention to detail.

There are no credentials to submit, except the willingness to pen the story in your head, play with words and stanzas, adjust lighting and experiment with angles, and bravely put it out there. This year, we received a record amount of submissions from individuals of all ages, from throughout Door County, Wisconsin, the U.S., and beyond.

I organized each submission with an identification number, so no one other than myself knew the author’s identity, and distributed the prose and poetry to a pre-screening committee consisting of Alissa Ehmke and Carol Thompson. Over a bottle of beer, the screeners pared down the entries to send to our esteemed, volunteer judges, who took the process on from there, choosing the featured pieces. (Thank you Bruce Dethlefsen, Justin Isherwood, and Emilie Coulson!)

Our photography judge – Len Villano – examined each image one by one. He scrutinized and commented on lighting, composition, and subject matter before finally choosing the photos that grace the pages of this issue.

This final product has required a number of talented individuals’ time and expertise in writing, in photography, in graphic design (thank you, Ryan Miller), in public relations (thank you, Madeline Johnson and Dave Eliot), and…meeting deadlines.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and submitted!