Editor’s Notebook: We Are Who We Are
September 2023
Readers, we considered sharing our “What did you do over summer vacation?” tales as a means to peek behind the curtain: What do magazine editors do when they’re not magazine editing? How and when do they write? Importantly, do they write at all?
We came up with this: &$#! (one of us navigating a medical emergency); %*^@ (one of us taking care of kids who got sick their first week of school); and what-the-actual-f? (one of us unable to send her kids back to school because of mold. MOLD.).
We are three WWR editors excited by and honored to publish stunning writing. Somehow, we hear the writing and associate it with images and sounds. We read music, echo voices, and project ideas. Despite and within our own trials, we continue to celebrate what flows by, no matter its form. But, we’re human—vulnerable and fierce—and because life is life, we must pivot to keep moving forward, like water.
—Suzanne Farrell Smith