Editor's Column

Extract

The editor's column in the March issue raised some questions about the recent decline in the number of essays submitted by men, about the merits of anonymous submissions and of our evaluation process, and about other matters. I invited members to share their thoughts on PMLA as a place to publish, and the responses are abundant, invigorating, dispiriting, quotable, predictable, and wonderfully informative. Since the scores of letters constitute a kind of informal survey, the first we have conducted for some time, I want to share some of the more telling observations, as well as the patterns that seem to emerge.