Editors' Note

Abstract

Editors' Note Red Washburn and Brianne Waychoff This issue Solidão hits during a critical moment transnationally. It lands during a global pandemic, with calamitous events from Trump and Bolsonaro worldwide. However, as Arundhati Roy states, "The pandemic is a portal" (Roy 2021). This time has allowed us to reimagine life and solidarity in order to resuscitate them during social isolation. It is a clarion call to reorganize life to repair ubiquitous underemployment and unemployment, inadequate health care, inhumane incarceration, sexual harassment against women, anti-Black police violence, trans dehumanization, totalitarian regimes, environmental destruction, Indigenous genocide, and the defunding of Black, race, ethnic studies; women's, gender, and sexuality studies; and LGBTQ studies. Of particular alarm is the predicament facing Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon—the loss of life, culture, nature, and habitat—as a result of the climate crisis and corporate wealth. The possibilities of the portal include a recentering of marginality, for example, Black and Indigenous women's and trans people's lives and words. The gateway from one way of life to the next demands we move beyond thought to practice freedom, a revolution that begins with decolonizing our minds and curricula as well as a massive restructuring of social institutions that shifts priorities to people over profit. The guest editors of this issue, along with the writers and artists who contributed to it, address many of these topics in-depth, thereby expanding the scholarship robustly. We are grateful to the guest editors for doing this issue, the first issue to come out during our editorship. We want to thank WSQ, including the editorial board, the poetry, prose, and art editors, and editorial assistants. In particular, we want to extend a hearty thank-you the editorial assistants, Amy Iafrate, Alex Johnson, Joe Goodale, and Ivy Bryan, all of whom worked [End Page 12] tirelessly on communicating with the scholars, writers, and artists to make this issue happen. In addition, we want to extend a generous thank-you to Dána-Ain Davis, Director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society, and administrative staff Eileen Liang and Jennifer Bae for providing WSQ with internships in feminist publishing for graduate students in women's and gender studies at the City University of New York. Our partnership has significantly enriched the quality of the journal for our feminist communities across CUNY and beyond. We are greatly indebted to the Feminist Press for all its help with scheduling, copyediting, and distributing our issues, especially to Interim Executive Director Lauren Rosemary Hook and Assistant Editor Nick Whitney. We also wish to thank Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities Kendra Sullivan, as well as Jordan Lord and Sampson Starkweather for collaborating with us and building a new vision for the journal, including aiding with publicity, administrative matters, and translations for this issue. We acknowledge the support we have received from the National Women's Studies Association, namely President Kaye Wise Whitehead and Interim Executive Director Jen Ash, as well as the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Lastly, we want to thank each other as general editors of WSQ for navigating a difficult editorial transition during austerity and doing so with feminist generosity. We are looking forward to celebrating the legacy of WSQ, its fiftieth anniversary hitting during our leadership, and creating a sustainable future for it at the City University of New York. Red Washburn Kingsborough Community College Director of Women's and Gender Studies Associate Professor of English City University of New York Brianne Waychoff Borough of Manhattan Community College Associate Professor of Speech Communications and Theatre Arts Gender and Women's Studies Program City University of New York Works Cited Roy, Arundhati. 2021. "The Pandemic Is a Portal." Haymarket Books (blog). 23 April 2020. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/130-arundhati-roy-the-pandemic-is-a-portal. Google Scholar Copyright © 2021 Red Washburn and Brianne Waychoff