One comforting thing about working for a pittance in an undervalued field at a besieged bastion of higher learning is that we’re not alone. In fact, we are legion (if the AWP registration figure is any indication), which means that even though we may never attain fortune or fame by any worldly standard, we do have a lot of friends. Little known fact: Lit mags don’t compete with other lit mags. We root for each other. We learn about staffers at other journals and consider them our brethren and, uh, sistren. We eagerly look through the exchange issues we receive and exclaim over shared contributors or cool artwork. We even stage photo shoots when we discover that one of our staff bears an eerie resemblance to the figure on the cover of the new Southern Review. Another little known fact: Michael Griffith and Nicola Mason especially look forward to receiving their quarterly issue of SR because . . . they started out there in the late 1800s as, respectively, humble assistant editor and grad assistant. And SR and CR also share a designer, the fabulously talented Barbara Bourgoyne (of Jeopardy fame—nah, just kidding, but for a second there we had you). However, the reference leads to a for-real fun fact. Michael’s second cousin, Thomas Horn (of Jeopardy fame), is the young star of the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. That means someone with a eensy smidgen of Michael’s genetic makeup actually knows Sandra Bullock personally. We leave you with the following caption for the photo above: Matt O’Keefe, about to crack open a new issue of The Southern Review, pauses to contemplate the insulation fluffing through the gap in our ceiling.
