So what’s involved in a Best Of issue? Do I just pick the stuff I like, and foist it off on you people as the Best of? Well, in some cases, yes, that’s exactly what happens. However, most of this issue was picked by students. I don’t get a lot of responses to my calls for students to tell me what they thought was the best of 2015, but I do get a few, so I gather those, look at what the students picked, and try to choose what most of them have suggested. But my own vote gets extra weight, because who’s gonna know, right? (Although that’d probably work better if I didn’t tell you about it.)
That said, I do like to make sure that what you see as a “Best of” issue is representative of what you’re going to get in every single issue of The Voice Magazine. Fortunately, there was enough good stuff from all of the writers this year that it wasn’t hard. Unfortunately, that makes for a huge issue.
And while some of you were kind enough to nominate a couple of the editorials or articles that I’ve done, I’ve chosen not to include any of those, it just seemed like too much hubris to me, and I’ve got more than enough of that to go around already. Besides, I couldn’t help but add to each article the reasons why it was chosen, so that’s already plenty of my writing represented in here.
Speaking of that, if you’re reading this on the web and you find that some of the comments don’t make sense, it’s probably because I wrote them while laying out the PDF, and some of them do have slight references to what was written before. One of the strange take-aways of reading on the web is that, because there’s no specific order to things online, when we make our own order works can get confusing. And if you happen to be taking the Hypertext and Literature course from AU, you now have an example of how the medium can screw up the message. You’re welcome.
Usually this is where I’d say we’ve got a good or great issue, and give some details on the articles, but come on, this is the Best Of issue, they’re all great, and giving the details would merely spoil the surprise. If you’re a long-time reader of The Voice Magazine this issue should be a nice trip down memory lane, and may highlight some of those articles you skipped over the year but really shouldn’t have. If this is one of your first issues, well then welcome! You’ve picked a great one to start, and you can expect to see more of this type of goodness (though perhaps not as concentrated as this) in the weeks to come.
And who do we have to thank for all this? Why, you, of course. The readers and AU students who support this magazine, and those of you who are out there doing this amazing writing that serves to remind all of us that even though we’re all doing this on our own, none of us are doing it alone.
Enjoy the read! I certainly did!
