Letter from the Editor

Abstract

Letter from the Editor Dora Malech I’m of the late 20th-century mix-tape generation, an era of cassettes lovingly ordered and bestowed upon friends or more-than-friends with the hope that not only each song but also their chronology and proximity would merit consideration. Curating The Hopkins Review for you elicits a similar pleasure, particularly imagining the physical publication reaching you, a thrill centuries older than my personal nostalgia, complicated and magnified by the sense of responsibility inherent in curating not familiar pop songs but of-the-moment and never-been-read-before literature. If, however, you’re more of a flip-around-the-issue reader, there are no hard feelings here. In fact, may I recommend dipping in on page 25 or page 70 and spending some time with the winners of our inaugural Stephen Dixon Fiction Prize and Anne Frydman Translation Prize, respectively? Of the Dixon Prize-winning story “Gretel” by Hedgie Choi, judge Porochista Khakpour writes, “Hedgie Choi’s ‘Gretel’ manages to be funny, sad, deeply disorienting, and almost mystically magnetic in a way few stories are. . . . I was stunned by how deeply relatable it often was, and . . . by the twists and turns of the plot and Choi’s lush and yet crisp prose that stayed with me long after reading.” Frydman Prize judge Jean McGarry chose Kevin Meehan’s excerpt from Camille’s Lakou, translated from the French and Guadeloupean Kreyol of Marie Léticée’s Moun Lakou (Ibis Rouge Editions, 2016) as her winner, writing of the judging process, “When I ask myself what my criteria might be when reading a piece of translated prose or poetry, these are not very different from what I ask of literature written in English: supple syntax creating an easy and expressive rhythm, diction appropriate to the subject matter and narrative voice, and a linguistic brightness that draws the reader in and proves consistently absorbing. And then, I have to admit one criterion stands out that relates not at all to the quality of the translation: my interest in the work itself.” McGarry quotes the opening sentences of the vignette “Vegetable Soup” (page 74) as an exemplar of such criteria, stating, “A list can be boring, but the odd concreteness of this one enchants.” It’s an honor to share the winning pieces with you in this issue, as it’s also a celebration of Dixon and Frydman’s literary legacy here at Johns Hopkins University and beyond. We were so impressed with the quality of work submitted to the inaugural contests [End Page 1] that we couldn’t resist choosing our own “Editors’ Choice” selections as well, which you can look forward to reading in the next issue, thr 16.2. I’ve long planned that this letter would celebrate our first awards from the journal; it is, however, a more recent surprise that this letter can also celebrate our first award for the journal. At the Modern Language Association of America’s annual mla convention in early January, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (celj) announced The Hopkins Review as the winner of its Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial or Design Achievement. Of our journal, the judges write, “The Hopkins Review has undertaken a major design overhaul that is visually stunning and inclusive of its locality. . . . The design changes have brought this important arts journal into the social stream of 21st-century cultural connections.” Read the celj judges’ full comments at HopkinsReview.com, along with original web content and more information about submitting your own writing to the next Dixon and Frydman contests. We’re grateful to Dixon and Frydman’s daughters Antonia and Sophia Frydman for their generosity in making these awards possible. Contest submissions (like all submissions) are free for subscribers—a good reason to subscribe, though we believe each piece in this issue is a reason to subscribe, and this year’s surreal exteriors from volume 16’s featured cover artist Se Jong Cho present four more reasons to make sure you receive your quarterly print issue of thr, an award-winning journal of literature and culture with the heart of a mix-tape, and, as always, with . . . Love...