Dear Reader,
I regret to announce that this issue (18.1) will be the final issue of Literary Matters under my editorship. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as Editor-in-Chief, and it is with a heavy heart that I find my time coming to an end. Alas, nothing is forever.
I am grateful to the ALSCW, especially Ernest Suarez, for the opportunity to work on LM.
I am grateful to the editorial team, without whom my tenure would have been impossible. Special thanks to Poetry Editor, Matthew Buckley Smith; Interviews Editor, Caitlin Doyle; Translations Editor, Chris Childers; Associate Poetry Editor, Cameron Clark; Contributing Editor, Alexis Sears; Editor Emeritus, Ryan Wilson; and Production Editor, Jeffrey Peters.
I am grateful to the contributors. Whatever LM has managed to accomplish in the past year is entirely because of you. Thank you for sharing your work.
I am grateful most of all to you, dear reader. Thank you for your generous support.
I hope you will help me welcome the new Editor-in-Chief, Emily Grace, who will also be replacing me as the Office Manager of the ALSCW.
Emily Grace was born and raised in Southern Maryland. She earned a B.A. in English Literature with a Minor in Music from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2018, and an M.A. in English Language and Literature from The Catholic University of America in 2021. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at The Catholic University of America, and her research focuses on the intersections between modernist literature and music in the work of James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison. She also works as a Professorial Lecturer in University Writing at George Washington University. In the past, she has worked as a poetry editor and content manager for The Loch Raven Review, and an assistant editor for Brick House Books, a Baltimore-based publishing house. Her creative work has appeared in such venues as Ghost City Press and Bartleby, among others. Emily has delivered papers at conferences of various professional societies including the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, the American Literature Association, the College English Association, and the Robert Penn Warren Circle. In 2025, she received the Capstone Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student, and in 2023, she received the Eleanor Clark Award from the Robert Penn Warren Circle.
Not fare well, but fare forward.
Gratefully yours,
JMS