Peter Stine:
Editor of "Witness"
N ESS
1920 to 1935, Bolkosky served as
A fledgling Detroit
literary journal has
attracted some big names
in the field of writing
MONA GRIGG
Special to The Jewish News
I
s there really room for yet
another literary journal in a
world so full of them that, in
order to draw attention, they
have to give - themselves names
like Zyzzyva and Pig Iron and Jam 7b-
day? Sidney Lutz, Peter Stine and Sid
Bolkosky think there is — in fact Lutz
is so sure of it, he's willing to put his
money where his mouth is.
Lutz is the publisher of Witness,
a brand new, slick literary quarterly
published under the aegis of the
Center for the Study of the Child, a
non-profit organization based in Far-
mington Hills and headed by Lutz.
Bolkosky, a history professor and
director of the honors program at
University of Michigan-Dearborn,
entered the picture when he received
a grant last year from the Center for
the Study of the Child to put together
a multi-media curriculum for
teaching the Holocaust in high
schools. (The program debuts this fall
in all Oakland County public high
schools.)
The author of The Distorted Im-
age, a study of German Jews from
mentor while Witness was still in its
embryonic stage and was the consul-
tant for the first issue, a theme issue
devoted entirely to writings on the
Holocaust.
The idea for the magazine came
about during a brainstorming session
with the staff of the Holocaust cur-
riculum. Lutz had a vision — at first
admittedly vague — of a magazine
where the writer, and ultimately the
reader, would serve as witness to
changing world and societal events.
"I mean, what the world needs is
another literary magazine — right?"
Lutz said dryly, then added, "But,
seriously, we just want to publish
significant kinds of writings about
contemporary issues that people
should really read about and think
about. And the people involved with
this magazine understand my
philosophy — my brand of
humanitarianism and -charity.
Beyond that, I tend to let people do
what they- think is necessary. I don't
feel that interfering in somebody's
creativity allows them to be creative."
The Center for the Study of the
Child came into being in 1970, when
Lutz was working on his Ph.D. in
child psychology at the University of
Michigan. He and a partner set up a
non-profit organization in order to
raise funds for a research project on
child development.
"It is still our non-profit arm, and
I just kept the name because I like it,"
Lutz says, "though I can see how it
can be confusing on the masthead of
a literary magazine."
Lutz also heads Lutz and
Associates, a company that is "half
software and data base, half training,
writing, research and graphic arts,"
he says, though he's quick to add that,
again, that's only part of it.
The company employs some sixty
people who work on projects ranging
from managing tuition assistance
programs for an auto company, to
maintaining data bases for various
political candidates and more than 30
non-profit organizations (including
the Michigan Cancer Foundation), to
developing a software program for a
200,000-employee multinational cor-
poration for use in their self-insured
workers compensation program.
"You can just call us
`schizophrenic,' " Lutz finally says,
laughing, "but the point is that we
have a lot of gifted and talented
writers right here on our staff, and we
wanted to give them something more
interesting to do than just the routine
corporate writing." Several Lutz and
Associates staff are on the Witness
editorial board or are slated as con-
tribUtors for future issues.
When the subject of editors came
up, it was Bolkosky who recommend-
ed Peter Stine. Stine is a former editor
of Ann Arbor magazine whose own
essays and articles have appeared in
literary and commercial magazines
and in newspapers. He came up with
the magazine's name, clarified the
concept, and, as editor, recruited some
of the country's top writers as con-
tributors — names like Joyce Carol
Oates, Gordon Lish, Robert Coover,
Lynn Sharon Schwartz, Madison
Smartt Bell, David Ignatow, Alice
Fulton and Charles Baxter.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
77