Ave atque Vale: A Letter from the Editor

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Dear Reader,

It is with mixed emotions that I announce this issue (16.3) will be the final issue of Literary Matters to publish new material, at least under my editorship. Later this Summer, a retrospective issue (17.1) will appear, and that issue will be my last. I sincerely hope that Literary Matters will be able to continue after my departure, but its future is, at present, uncertain. For now, all submissions are closed indefinitely.

In graduate school many years ago, I hoped one day to have the opportunity to edit a literary magazine. I dared to think that I might do well at it. I am, therefore, profoundly grateful to many individuals, responsible in various ways, for giving me the chance to work on Literary Matters, especially to Dr. Ernest Suarez, Rosanna Warren, and Dave Smith. I hope now, upon completing my eighth volume and twenty-fourth issue, that I have done well, or, at least, at times, have not done badly.

I’m grateful also to the wonderful and selfless editorial team of Literary Matters, whose sacrifices have allowed the journal to grow and to flourish: Jeffrey Peters, Raphael Krut-Landau, Caitlin Doyle, Armen Davoudian, Christopher Childers, Joanna Pearson, Mike Mattison, Ernest Suarez, Alexis Sears, Cameron Clark, and Matthew Buckley Smith.

I’m grateful to all of the contributors, whose work should be credited with whatever success the journal has achieved. It has been an honor and a pleasure to publish literary lions I’ve long admired alongside promising up-and-comers, and to discover a number of outstanding writers previously unknown to me. I want especially to remember those contributors who are no longer with us, including many of my own literary heroes, such as David Bottoms, Fred Chappell, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Stephen Dunn, David Ferry, Elise Partridge, Linda Pastan, Marjorie Perloff, Charles Simic, and Jean Valentine.

This Summer I’m moving to the coastal prairies of Texas, and this Fall I’ll begin work as an Associate Professor in the M.F.A. program at The University of St. Thomas-Houston. I am very much looking forward to the days ahead, but I will always look back on the Literary Matters years with fondness and gratitude. I’m grateful most of all, reader, for you. It’s all been for you.

Incipit vita nova.

Ryan Wilson