Editorial from the current issue

91.1/2 Spring/Summer 2012

This issue of The Dalhousie Review marks my last as its editor. I began my term in July 2007, taking over from my friend and mentor, Robert Martin. It has now been five years, during which time The Review has updated its layout, digitized its extensive catalogue of back issues (which will eventually be available to subscribers), revived its website, and focused more on fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and reviews of books published by Canadian presses than it had previously. In concentrating on creative rather than critical scholarly work my thinking was that we should accentuate what we do best—publishing excellent fiction and poetry—in order to engage the intelligent general reader who is not looking to read the kind of work best presented in specialized academic journals. As a result, we have been able to publish far more short stories and poems than was the case when a certain percentage of our pages was reserved for criticism. The quality of the creative work we’ve presented has been ratified by the numerous selections from The Review that have appeared in Journey Prize anthologies over the past few years. I have been very pleased with the decisions we’ve made in these regards, and feel that our talented contributors have been well served by our change in focus.

Of course, not everything has gone as I would have hoped, but we can never realistically expect it to. I would like our funding situation to be more secure than it is. And I would have liked to respond to our contributors more quickly than I did. The funding situation is affected by too many factors—some controllable, others less so—for me to enumerate here. But it is my hope that a journal that has existed for over 90 years will find a place in the byzantine funding priorities of the university whose name it bears.

The delays in replying to our contributors were ultimately my responsibility, however. For that, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize. The people who have contributed to The Dalhousie Review, and who I hope will continue to do so, did me, and our associate editors, the great honour of allowing us to read their work. I have respected that honour and responsibility profoundly; however, I did not always demonstrate my respect by replying in a timely fashion. It is my sincere hope that those who have found themselves waiting longer than they should have will not hold my delays against the journal.

Working for The Review has enabled me to collaborate with some great colleagues. Our associate editors have been attentive and diligent when called upon to evaluate submissions. I thank them for their work. Most of all, though, have been the invaluable efforts of Jennifer Lambert, our production manager. I have been able to watch and marvel at Jennifer’s commitment to The Review over the course of the four years I spent as associate editor and now the last five years as editor. Perhaps the best unintended consequence of ending my term is that I am able to take a moment to thank Jennifer in print for all of her work for the journal, and for making my job easier.

Finally, I would like to thank the many contributors whose work I was able to read over the course of the nine years I have been associated with The Dalhousie Review. The quality and range of the work I’ve read is what I will probably miss most.

AS

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