First, let me issue a formal apology to both our contributors and our readers. Both editors of The Externalist have had unforeseeable circumstances in the past several months. We are behind on publishing previously accepted work. We are behind on reading new submissions. We are behind on developing our .pdf's. We were anticipating opening to our first anthology submissions this month, but we're behind on that, too. We're sorry!

In an effort to get caught up on all of these things and to better situate The Externalist as a whole, we are closing to new submissions until summer 2010. We will be publishing previously accepted work and potentially work that has been submitted, but not yet read, throughout that time period. All of this newly-published material will be included in the Issue 13 .pdf. In addition, I'll be sending emails to a few of our former contributors from the last three years requesting permission to republish their work in a "Best of" anthology--our first.

I feel as though I owe our loyal readers and contributors an explanation for my slacking these past months. I lost my father to lung cancer in October, just two weeks after we purchased our home. While I continue to believe that literature is a force for social change and inherently activist in nature, I have been admittedly wrapped up in the very personal since Dad was diagnosed in July. As such, I have not felt that I could fairly represent the wonderful work we've received in the latter half of 2009.

But now it's time to get back on track, to pull myself from the isolated island of grief and move forward. My father taught me that all things are possible, that I could not only observe my surroundings, but have an impact upon them. In that way, the continuation of The Externalist honors him. May it bring us all a little healing and a lot of life.

Larina