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Editorial
TAR Days
My term as editor of The Antigonish Review ends
April 2001. My wife Gertrude is also retiring at that time. We have been
with the Review since its inception in 1969. I became editor and Gertrude
managing editor in 1980. The next two or three numbers will reflect material
selected under our editorial direction.
TAR remains indebted to many persons and sources. R.J. MacSween promoted
the idea of a literary review that would serve as a vehicle for Atlantic
writers when he was still head of the English Department at St. Francis
Xavier University in 1969. Rev. Malcolm MacDonell, then Dean of Arts,
successfully advanced the proposal within the reigning University Council.
MacSween installed Brocard Sewell as the first editor, assuming the editorship
himself a year later. MacSween resigned as editor in 1980 but his influence
endures. His work was celebrated in a double issue of the Review in 1991(TAR
# 87-88).
Successive ST. F.X. administrations have maintained the difficult (and
rare) balance of bestowing generous financial support and complete editorial
freedom. The Canada Council is also an essential contributor to our existence
through its financial support and through the annual remarks, criticisms
and suggestions of its Writing and Publications Jury.
It was never intended that TAR be solely a production of the English
Department at ST. F.X. The first editorial board was composed of
members from English, Philosophy and Modern Languages. This composition
was retained over the years and we now also have a member of the Business
Administration department (Gerry Trites) on the editorial board. But most
of the editors taught in the English department. Kevin O'Brien, Sheldon
Currie, Jim Taylor, Bill Tierney, Pat Walsh and later Reynold Stone, all
University English teachers, did much valuable work in the first decade
of TAR's existence. (Jim, Reynold and Sheldon are still active on TAR's
behalf). Veronica Ross, though geographically remote, became an important
member of the fiction reading team. About five years ago Erin Penzes and
then Tom Hodd added their talents to the screening process. More recently
Anne Simpson (Fiction Editor) and Jeanette Lynes (Reviews and Promotion)
have become influential members of the editorial board, while continuing
to publish their own creative works.
For the last twenty-one years I have been mainly responsible for obtaining
and editing non-fiction material. In the seventies and eighties Gertrude
translated many Quebecois poets and gradually assumed the important but
often unappreciated task of assembling each review, proofreading, selecting
and positioning the material according to complex criteria which included
the acceptance date of the material, its geographical provenance, its
content and relationship to adjacent material and other nuanced considerations.
In the early eighties Frank Macdonald put his graphic
design abilities at the disposal of TAR. Frank and I were admirers of
McLuhan and other pioneering media thinkers. This editorial collaboration
resulted in a double issue of TAR on McLuhan in 1988 (TAR # 74-75) which
was later issued in the USA as a book co-edited by us entitled Marshall
McLuhan: The Man and His Message. Frank's stylistic discrimination has
contributed greatly to TAR's success.
TAR, initially oriented towards Nova Scotia and Atlantic
Canada, soon began receiving submissions from other parts of Canada and
the USA. Contributions now arrive from many other parts of the world.
When MacSween resigned, Peter Sanger, then teaching English at the Nova
Scotia Agricultural College in Truro N.S., agreed to become Poetry Editor.
He combines a true poetic sensibility with an amazing degree of fortitude,
reading and selecting manuscripts from a seemingly inexhaustible supply
of established and aspiring poets.
In reviewing these contributions by a variety of talented
people it is also important to remark on The Casket Printing & Publishing
Printing Company, Ltd. TAR has been printed at The Casket from the beginning.
It is the only print shop in Antigonish, its central physical asset a
single color Heidelberg. But its more important assets include a variety
of talented people who have worked hard over the last thirty-one years
to respond to our printing demands. Of the many Casketeers who have helped
TAR appear quarterly, Jack MacMillan, Manager of the Printing section,
has had the longest association with us. Working with Jack has always
been an interesting experience.
TAR has depended, as do most other reviews of its kind,
on a large number of people who have volunteered their time and effort,
in many cases over decades. Our indispensable part-time secretary and
Office Manager, Bonnie McIsaac, is the only salaried person working for
the review.
TAR's future is hard to discern. Literary reviews are
having trouble retaining subscribers. They resort more and more frequently
to contests in which the entry fee pays for a subscription. This ad-hoc
situation is clearly unsatisfactory. The by-products of traditional print
literacy - detachment and a visually structured inner-space, become endangered
species on the electronic veldt. I cannot imagine, on the basis of my
experience with computer monitors, that the peculiar pleasures of fiction
and poetry can be experienced with the same depth and range and the same
cognitive discernment as that yielded by traditional printing on paper.
Ho hum.
Lao Tse says that "the sage confronts difficulties,
therefore he does not have to experience them."
Check our new website: antigonishreview.com
George Sanderson
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