Phillip Hemenway becomes Phantasm's poetry editor succeeding Kevin Campbell. Hemenway teaches English at Butte College in Oroville, California. He is a published poet and enjoys cooking and traveling.

Although Phantasm operated at a deficit, publisher Larry Jackson changed his policy of paying poets with two copies of the magazine to paying poets with the one copy of the magazine and two dollars in cash. He always enclosed a thank you letter. Cover price of the magazine was two dollars plus free shipping. Not one contributor bought a second copy of the magazine with his/her two dollar payment.

A three-page humorous layout satirizing Writer's Digest, written by Brian Robertson, includes a photo of Jennifer Rowe (who later marries editor Larry Jackson) modeling as Mrs. Thelma Handstand. Editor Gary Lagier reproduces the illustrated Phantasm article in his Impact magazine (Sunnyvale, Calif.) without permission, which upsets Jackson.