Here and there in the Catskills and Hudson River valley, you'll come across a place name that reflects the occupation of those who settled there: Tannersville, Quarryville, Cementon, Grant Mills and DeWitt Mills, and Saugerties, the village of the sawyers. But you will scan the map in vain for Writersville, or Scribestown, or Bardstock. While it is true that writers in this region are as plentiful as deer, day lilies, and mosquitoes, they do not cluster in any one nook or cranny; rather, they drift, like literate spores of milkweed, and propagate, willy-nilly, in colonial city and forest cabin, riparian hamlet and remote hilltop.They are a hardy and variegated lot, and what they pen, type, or otherwise output is every bit as rich and diverse.

This Chronogram Literary Supplement hopes to echo that richness and diversity. Edited by Mikhail Horowitz and Nina Shengold, it features fiction, poetry, personal essays, book reviews, cartoons, and short humorous pieces by writers of every stipple and persuasion: old pros and promising rookies; the celebrated, the soon-to-be-celebrated, and the defiantly obscure. The editors take particular joy in noting that these gifted writers, while representing the full range of Chronogram's circulation area, comprise the merest fraction of the gold in these har hills. [Ed Note: This web version includes two short stories, and Ars Poetica, poems on reading and writing.]

The response to our 2005 Short Fiction Contest was tremendous. We received more than 60 stories, from which Chronogram staffers chose seven outstanding finalists to send to our guest judge, Quills Award nominee (for The Ha-Ha) and Columbia County resident Dave King. The winning stories, Carol Bugge's "The Kite" and Brent Robison's "Phoenix Egg: Three Vignettes," appear in this issue. Look for more finalists, including Jack Kelly's Honorable Mention winner, "One Mississippi," in upcoming issues of Chronogram.

Poetry editor Phillip Levine assembles a bevy of poems about reading and writing.