Editor’s Note

This issue, 38.2, marks the last issue for which I will serve as editor of Pleiades. I have been a part of the editorial team at Pleiades since 2007, when I started as fiction editor, and then took up the mantle of editor in 2010. The natural question to ask at this juncture is “what, in eleven years, have I accomplished?”

I am tempted to list every writer whom I have published during my tenure as editor, because the greatest pride and fulfillment that I have experienced in this role comes from discovering new literary talent and encouraging writers at a nascent stage of their careers, then following their accomplishments as they rise to literary prominence. But I will restrain myself, and only name-check 25 fiction-writers (with apologies to the poets and essayists, for whom the credit of publishing their extraordinary work goes to other editors), all of whom have helped the journal rise to stand among the best literary journals in the country: Zachary Mason, Alexander Weinstein, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Michael Kardos, Amina Gautier, Tiphanie Yanique, Christine Sneed, William Giraldi, Matthew Salesses, Kaethe Schwehn, Bayard Godsave, Venita Blackburn, Michael Nye, Teresa Milbrodt, Hilary Plum, Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, Brenda Peynado, Christina Clancy, David Yost, Hunter Choate, Allyson Goldin Loomis, B.J. Best, Jameelah Lang, J. Duncan Wiley, & Kurt Becket Pitzer.

There are many other writers who do not fit these categories whose work I believe in just as strongly. But this is a snapshot of what I regard to be my greatest accomplishment: building a community within the magazine where literature is at home, and discussions about literature are waged. We have featured fiction from around the globe and shown diversity within American writing. We have broadened the discussion to include such subjects as “Moral Fiction” and “Honest Violence” and “Writing about War.” I’ve had the privilege of building relationships with many of these writers outside of the written community as well, at conference, festivals, and workshops, not to mention countless meals and drinks shared and conversations had.

________

The context for this journal, and the relationships that it helped forge, is the academic environment At its best, academia turns valuable tangibles into even more valuable intangibles: it swallows time and money, but instills knowledge, openness to and awareness of opposing perspectives, and critical ability. A literary journal is an essential part of this larger mission for the inspiration it confers upon the reader, and the imaginative work that is undertaken by the writer. And as Einstein wrote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”

As the liberal arts mission of American universities are diluted by the increasing focus upon vocational viability, it is in fact the core value of education itself that is being questioned: should we, after all, be turning our valuable tangibles into intangibles? The gamble of education is that it does not always provide “skills” that neatly correspond one-to-one with a given vocation, but assumes that a broad base of intellectual experience can prepare us for learning and working in a variety of contexts, whether vocational, civic, or interpersonal. Real education, in other words, ought to confer not just knowledge itself, but some basis from which to consider how knowledge is used.

As the principles of education itself are under threat, so are literary journals within academia. For my last act as editor of Pleiades, allow me to make this appeal: become an avid writer yourself. It is not immediately apparent how this will help anyone, but I have a strong conviction that it will. The fact that you are reading this in the first place suggests you are an avid reader. But to become an avid writer as well is an act of commitment that prepares us for life in a democracy, and invests us further in the value of that democracy. So keep a journal, write letters by hand, compose poetry even if you only intend to share it with a friend, record your life stories. Someone, somewhere, may come across it and be grateful that you cared...