In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Editor's Note
  • Jennifer S. Tuttle

This issue is my last as editor in chief. When I assumed this role, one of the most rewarding and fulfilling of my professional career, I committed to a five-year term, both to limit the time devoted to work outside my home institution and to ensure a healthy diversity of leadership for the journal. I therefore have the honor of handing the reins over to Susan Tomlinson, who is currently a Legacy coeditor and formerly a board member and consultant reader. The journal could not hope to have more competent, generous, or graceful leadership than it will under Susan’s guidance. I am thrilled that I will resume my former position of coeditor during the coming months as the journal undergoes this transition.

As the editor, I have had the privilege of topping the masthead, but I have stood on the shoulders of many, many people who deserve equal credit for the work we have produced. Indeed, I wish here to thank each of them by name, not only to make that point explicit but also to demonstrate two key principles of published scholarly work: it is always a collaboration, and the labor of most of its contributors is invisible. Indeed, as I often say to my colleagues here, the better each of us is at doing our job, the more invisible we become. The published version of each item that appears in Legacy and my work producing the journal are possible only because of the contributions of myriad individuals. I am deeply grateful to each one of them for their dedication.

In creating the present issue, it has been my honor to work with coeditors Susan Tomlinson and Jennifer Putzi, managing editor Mary I. Unger, editorial assistant Summar C. Sparks, features editor Desirée Henderson, book review editor Jean Marie Lutes, and editorial interns Jennifer Bradley, Melanie Calicchio, Shannon Cardinal, Madeline Cooper, Megan Hall, Kalimah Mustafa, Josh Powers, and Halie Pruitt. They truly are a fabulous team; hard workers all, they are committed, creative, and utterly conscientious.

During my time as editor of Legacy I have been honored as well to work with editor, coeditor, and then consulting editor Nicole Tonkovich; coeditor and then consulting editor Theresa Strouth Gaul; managing editor, features editor, and then consulting editor Robin L. Cadwallader; consulting editor Sharon M. Harris; editorial assistant Amber LaPiana; assistant editor Lisa M. Thomas; book review editor Sari Edelstein; editorial interns Christie Shields, [End Page ix] Kate Slater, and Kassia D. Waggoner; and digital and social media consultants Donna M. Campbell, Gregory Eiselein, and Randi Tanglen. All of these capable people deserve my gratitude. So, too, do our generous Legacy board members— currently, Lorrayne Carroll, Catherine Keyser, Barbara McCaskill, Joycelyn Moody, Marianne Noble, Alexandra Socarides, and Laura Stevens; and in previous years Gregory Eiselein, Meredith Goldsmith, Tamara Harvey, Desirée Henderson, Laura Korobkin, Laura Laffrado, Jennifer Putzi, Susan Tomlinson, and Karen Weyler. I have also benefited from generous mentoring by Legacy co-founder Joanne Dobson.

This large number of contributors to Legacy’s final product is impressive— but I have not yet finished with my enumerations. I have had the opportunity to oversee two special issues during my tenure, and their guest editors also deserve thanks for their vision and hard work; they are Michael Davidson (for the issue on Women Writing Disability) and Katherine Adams, Caroline Gebhard, and Sandra A. Zagarell (for the issue on Recovering Alice Dunbar- Nelson for the Twenty-First Century). Legacy uses a process of double-blind peer review, made possible only through the truly dedicated and thoughtful work of our consultant readers, and I have had the pleasure of working with scores and scores of them, to whom I am also deeply grateful. Rounding out the composition of each issue, of course, are the authors of scholarly essays, features, and book reviews themselves who submit their compelling work to us and then work with us to make it as polished as can be. They are the true heart of everything we do.

As the editor in chief, I read and take my turn to edit every single item that appears in Legacy, a privilege and responsibility...

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