Editors' Note
by Leah Richards and John R. Ziegler
Note: Page numbers from the print version are indicated in brackets and should not be considered part of the text of the article.
[page 3] Things continue to be chaotic and the times unprecedented, and we appreciate that our authors and readers cut us such slack and waited so patiently for this issue to come out. We’ve been thinking about our place in the world of small, spooky, scholarly journals—thanks in part to being asked to participate in “Meet the Editors” panels at the International Gothic Association conferences in 2022 and 2024 with editors from Gothic Studies, Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Revenant, and Dissections—and the (uncompensated but extremely glamorous) work that scholars put into academic journals as members of editorial boards, as peer reviewers, and, of course, as authors of articles and reviews. We’ve come to realize that two issues a year is a lot, and with new journals appearing regularly and creating greater demand for resources like authors and peer reviewers, probably unsustainable. We owe it to our authors—past, present, and future—to keep the journal going without sacrificing quality or giving up on our commitment to open access publishing, and to that end we’ve decided to move to a once-a-year publication schedule for regular issues, with special issues appearing outside of that timeline. Of course, this issue is the 2024 issue, so there will be a 2025 issue this summer as well as our delayed special issue on Twin Peaks: The Return, and we’ll probably settle into a summer publication schedule moving forward.
We hosted our third conference in Spring of 2024 at Marist College—now University, they grow up so fast!—thanks to the work of Marist professor and newest member of our Editorial Board Dr. Patricia Tarantello and the students in her capstone class for English majors. It was a fantastic conference, and we were able to bring Dr. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, who has also joined our Board, over from Manchester [page 4] Metropolitan University in the U.K. as our keynote speaker. Thank you, Patty and Sorcha, for a brilliant conference, and welcome to the team! We aren’t sure when we’ll hold our next conference—we don’t want to compete with other regional or genre conferences for participants or attendees—but we know it will be another stellar event because we’re surrounded by such great people!
Finally, we left Mr. Musk’s ToXic Toybox for good this year. You can follow Leah on Bluesky (@plaguedr-richards.bsky. social) for journal updates as well as insightful, profanity dusted posts on matters outside of Supernatural Studies.
As always, please visit our website (supernaturalstudies. com) for more information about submitting, becoming a peer reviewer, or being added to our list of potential book reviewers. Stay safe, stay angry, and stay spooky, friends!
Leah Richards, Ph.D.
John R. Ziegler, Ph.D.
Co-Editors
MLA citation (print):
Richards, Leah, and John R. Ziegler. "Editors' Note." Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture, vol. 10, no. 1, 2024, pp. 3-4.