Editors’ Note

Abstract

Editors’ Note Aimee Pozorski and Maren Scheurer We have lately been thinking about the idea of the backlog—at once an editor’s greatest source of fear and hope. The word itself connotes accumulation, unfinished business, and work that needs to be tended or addressed. And while the connotations are not always positive, for an editor of a peer reviewed journal, a robust backlog can be a rare gift. It means that scholars and readers are invested in keeping the journal going with a submission of their very own. It also assumes trust: trust that the work will be handled by editors with integrity and respect and trust that the journal will continue, long after the peer review process is complete. When we became co-executive editors of Philip Roth Studies now over four years ago, our predecessors, Dr. Debra Shostak and Dr. David Brauner, offered words of wisdom and warning: be mindful of the backlog, they said. The backlog holds the key to the success of the journal. We took this advice to heart and cultivated our backlog as one tends a garden, looking forward to a time when it bears fruit. In the last few years, we have had the pleasure of working with the authors whose work was accepted under Deb and David, and we have had the pleasure of working with authors who came on board after that. We have come to appreciate, even find comfort in, the cyclical nature of editing a peer reviewed journal—seeing an essay come in before sending it out to two anonymous readers, communicating with the authors invaluable feedback from our editorial board, filing accepted work for safe keeping and, over a year later, returning to it again to undertake the process of preparing the essay for publication. This process involves at least three more readings—one for argument, one for paragraph and sentence coherence, and one for copy editing. The process is long and for some, mentally draining. It is also, paradoxically, invigorating and restorative. It ends in something we can all hold in our hands or read online, a production in every sense of the word. The back and forth we undertake with contributors can be dizzying, electrifying, exhausting, and rewarding. We sometimes worry for our authors who undertake this journey with us and may not realize that being added to the backlog is only a first step of many that ultimately ends with a near finalized draft in their inboxes. These drafts contain for us what feels to be the universe, ongoing conversations we engage with each other and with Dr. Jessica Rabin, our associate copy editor, about our positions on such issues as diction, punctuation, and style. We are now at the point in our careers editing Philip Roth Studies where we are mindful that we are building on the backlog for our successors. We are preparing to deliver what we hope are similarly wise remarks for the next team seeking to build [End Page 1] and cultivate our most treasured asset: the store of essays that will keep the journal going long after we step away. To those of you who have worked with us over the years, to those who have submitted essays during our tenure, we thank you for believing we would take special care of your singular ideas and continue to build on the legacy of the journal itself. To the readers of Philip Roth Studies who have not yet put their oars in, we are inviting you to send us your best work for a backlog that will soon be in the hands of the next editorial team. In this issue, our penultimate as editors, we look back at a process that marks our final plunge into the backlog of Philip Roth Studies. The next issue will be guest-edited by Ira Nadel and that table of contents is set. In a year from now, a new team will be at the helm, and they will be the ones to keep the process going. In these pages, we are publishing with pride five remarkable essays that have waited over a year to see the light in addition to a record...