Editor's note: moving on.

As many of you know, I began American Drama sixteen years ago. This has been a glorious run and a great learning experience. However, now I would like to turn my energy and time to focus on my own writing, research and editorial projects. As I prepare to depart, I extend sincere reassurance to the scholars and lovers of American Drama that the Department of English of the University of Cincinnati is planning a smooth transition for the continuing editing and publishing of this journal. I ask your continued loyalty, support, subscriptions, and submissions to the journal as it enters a new era.

When I started American Drama, I did so to fill a huge gap in academic publishing. There was no journal on the market entirely devoted to American drama written in any era. To this day American Drama remains the only journal that exclusively devotes itself to publishing the latest research and criticism on American dramatic literature whether written for the stage, the screen, radio, or television. I am proud of the way we have fulfilled our mission.

This Summer 2006 and the Winter 2007 issues are the last ones I will edit alone. In this next year I will work with the Department of English Chairman, Leland Person, to find a new editor with whom I will co-edit a transitional issue of the journal which will be published as usual in Summer 2007.

It has been great fun to conceptualize, launch, and keep in motion an academic journal. I am glad to have published so many extraordinary scholars and to have made available the finest scholarship on American dramatic literature that was submitted to our journal. The joyful notes from authors who credit this journal in aiding their efforts at tenure and promotion have touched me greatly. I am thrilled that the project of our journal--to theorize American dramatic literature--has been reflected so richly and provocatively in the pages of the publication. Finally, I am proud to say we have always published on time and have tried to communicate in a fair and open way with all those who subscribed and submitted material to the journal.

Although I am a 12th generation Rhode Island Yankee, I have come to recognize the degree to which the journal reflects the efforts and solid values of the American heartland. When I first took up my appointment at the University of Cincinnati, I mentioned to my interviewers my desire to start a journal and open a center for playwriting. Although all clucked their tongues and told me to wait until I had tenure before throwing myself onto the pyre of service, I kept my resolve. When I was awarded early tenure in 1987, I threw all caution to the wind and turned to my two great mentors--Charles Shattuck of The University of Illinois and Albert Wertheim of Indiana University--for their guidance in forming a journal. These two great men, both deceased, helped me launch the journal and recruit our fabulous editorial board.

Helen Weinberger, a local philanthropist, friend, and lover of theatre, came forward to ask how she could best endow the study of drama at the University of Cincinnati. This remarkable woman decided to underwrite a national center for the study of drama and playwriting which would support publication of a journal on American drama as one of its primary activities. Mrs. Weinberger's financial support for the journal made it possible to begin publication.

However, publication always depends on submissions. And for those I am in the debt of the active members of my illustrious Editorial Board. Without their recommendation of the journal to their colleagues and graduate students, we would not have received the steady stream of submissions that showed how necessary such an outlet is to scholars in the field. They helped me to recruit the unsung and anonymous readers who read and pass judgment on each article we receive. Over the years I have called on scores of people to help me in the task of reading and selecting the best essays for publication. I want to thank all those scholars who have generously and efficiently fulfilled that academic service. I have tried to rotate you and not tax you too many times. You know who you are, and you have my gratitude.

Throughout all these years, I have been blessed with the unstinting aid of my Managing Editor and husband, Yashdip S. Bains. He has been my anchor in every storm. I wish him continued success (and much love) as he begins to contemplate retirement and turns his attention back to Shakespeare on a full-time basis.

The design of the journal as well as the covers featuring original drawings of playwrights discussed in each issue have been due to the talents and generosity of an outstanding professional designer, my son Joseph Francis. Because his aesthetic sense could not tolerate the way the journal looked when it was first launched, he volunteered to improve the journal's appearance. He succeeded beyond my wildest dreams--as he always does. I want to thank him for the generous gift he has made of his time and talents to academic publishing.

I am not sure if readers realize that many of the people who edit and do the work to publish academic journals receive no pay for their efforts. Yashdip and I each received a one course abatement each year, and in the past four years our new department chairman, Leland Person, has generously increased my course abatement to two courses annually. I am grateful to him for that help.

In the first years of the journal, I shared a graduate student as an assistant with another journal. Now I have my own assistant to help me in proofreading and preparing the journal for the printer. Although there is often a steep learning curve--as a new assistant has to be taught all the protocols of the journal publication game--it has been rewarding to work with so many wonderful students. Many of them have assured me the experience in publishing a journal and being inside the publication process as graduate students has been enormously helpful in their own writing and publishing efforts. I want to thank all the assistants that have worked with me in the past sixteen years, but I particularly want to mention my current assistant, Amanda Wheeler, who has a steady, easy, efficient style of work. She has promised to stay on for the last issues of my editorship and to be part of the transition team.

As I begin the third act of my own career and prepare to write and publish a few more words of my own, I look over my shoulder and look forward to greeting soon the new editor of American Drama. Wish me luck in my new endeavors. I look forward to hearing from you and to calling on your help to create a smooth transition for a new editor who will shape the shining future of American Drama.