Looking Back, Looking Forward: Reflections on SAIL

After five years, four and a half volumes, and eighteen issues, these words officially mark our final editorial contribution to SAIL. Aside from a few small tasks remaining for us, the co-editorship of the journal now belongs to our successors, Chad Allen (Submissions) and Michelle Raheja (Production); their first issue will follow this one and mark the start of an exciting new phase in the journal’s history.

It has been an extraordinary experience to guide the journal these past five years and to work with such incredible people along the way. SAIL and the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures have been foundational to our own growth as scholars in the field; many of our most honored colleagues and good friends came into our lives through opportunities provided by the intellectual community developed through ASAIL. While we move on to other projects, we will continue to read, debate, engage, and learn from the essays, reviews, and commentaries published in SAIL. Indeed, under the visionary guidance of its new editorial team (with the fabulous Lisa Tatonetti continuing as Book Review Editor), the journal promises to shape the field in even more provocative, rigorous, and exciting ways.

The creation of a journal issue is a collaborative, collective effort, and we owe our most sincere gratitude to a great many people. Our first thanks go to our home institutions, specifically the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin and the Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives at the University of Toronto. Elizabeth Cullingford, the chair of UT–Austin’s Department of English, has been especially generous. These academic units supported our labor on the journal and funded our editorial assistants, to whom we also extend our gratitude: Kirby Brown, Lydia French, Laine Perez, Bryan Russell, Alberto Varon, and Kyle Carsten Wyatt. The journal would be much poorer without their dedication, hard work, and critical acumen.

In particular, we wanted to take the opportunity to acknowledge the long service of Kirby and Kyle, who worked on SAIL while they finished their PhDs under the supervision of James and Daniel, respectively. We are very proud that SAIL continues its tradition of providing editorial, networking, and research experience for another generation of young scholars. Kirby will be joining the faculty at the University of Oregon as assistant professor of Native literature, and Kyle is now the managing editor of Canada’s prestigious cultural affairs magazine, the Walrus. Please join us in congratulating these impressive young scholars as they begin their professional journeys!

Our Editorial Board colleagues over the years have made it possible to fulfill the diverse mandate of the journal, and we want to offer our deepest appreciation to Chad Allen, Lisa Brooks, Robin Riley Fast, Susan Gardner, Patrice Hollrah, Arnold Krupat, Molly McGlennen, Margaret Noori, Kenneth Roemer, Lisa Tatonetti, Christopher Teuton, and Jace Weaver. The creative submissions over the years have been carefully and thoughtfully reviewed by Joseph Bruchac and LeAnne Howe. Long-time Book Review Editor P. Jane Hafen finished her service a couple of years ago, and now Lisa Tatonetti continues in that important role.

We would be remiss if we didn’t thank the many manuscript and book reviewers who have served SAIL over the years. Without your willingness to participate in the review process, we wouldn’t have an astonishing thirty-five-year legacy of scholarship to celebrate and reflect upon. We also offer our sincere appreciation to the many writers who have submitted manuscripts to SAIL. Every issue is an opportunity to bring new perspectives, visions, and writers to an ever-expanding (and increasingly transnational) audience interested in the beauty, power, and transformative potential of Indigenous literary expression. The editors emeritus of SAIL—Helen Jaskoski, Robert M. Nelson, Malea Powell, John Purdy, Rodney Simard, and the late Karl Kroeber—all cleared a good path for us to follow. In this issue LaVonne Ruoff helps us to honor Karl Kroeber with a memorial she wrote especially for SAIL. We have included as well an interview with and speech by...