Editor's Letter

EDITOR'S LETTER Readers have in their hands a double issue of the Review. At its meeting at the Annual Convention in Salt Lake City in October, the RMMLA Board voted two decisions that affect the publication format of the Review. The first was to bring out a double issue for the first half of 1983. Although this issue contains the same number of pages as two separate issues would and therefore does not represent any savings in typesetting and printing costs, by having one mailing instead of two some money has been saved. Since the financial situation of the Association is, like that of most scholarly organizations, hardly rosy, these attempts to save money are inevitable. The Board hopes that it will not become necessary to cut back the actual number of pages of scholarly material included in the Review. The second decision of the Board affects the Convention Issue of the Review, which we are now in the process of preparing. Members will have noted that, in the flier calling for papers, no mention is made of the abstract, so dear to past programs. The RMMLA is the only MLA affiliate that prints abstracts in the program. While this has been a praiseworthy feature, it is a costly one. Therefore, in another effort to reduce publication costs without cutting the number of scholarly articles in the Review, the 1983 Convention Issue will appear in a considerably altered format. It will, however, still appear with our standard cover and include a full range of information concerning the meeting. Each current RMMLA member can contribute to alleviating our present financial difficulties by urging colleagues and graduate students to join. Graduate students are particularly welcome and enjoy full rights of participation in the meeting and the Review. A greater support of the Association by all faculty in the region is certainly preferable to an increase in the annual dues. The publication of a double issue has provided the Editor with the opportunity to bring together a number of articles related in various ways. All of the papers deal with narrative, although the sort of approach each critic uses differs as much as the actual texts examined. I am particularly pleased about how the papers exemplify the range of submissions the Review has been able to attract. Rather than providing additional bibliography on heavily studies figures, these papers deal with topics as diverse as the Chicano novel and recent Czech fiction, with East German writing and a regional American novelist. Critical approaches involve both standard contextualization and commentary and analysis based on concepts of intertextuality and theories of narrative structure. I hope you will agree with me the conjunction is an interestingrange of studies. ...