Volume 12, Issue 2: Fall/Winter 2003-04

From the Editor

Welcome to the Fall/Winter 2003-04 issue of The Promethean. We are pleased to feature essays, poems, and artwork contributed by members of the Concordia University community during the fall semester. This is our most substantial issue to date and we are pleased with the breadth of perspective and genre that is represented. This issue features the three entries in our annual fall themed-essay forum: "Is the World a Safer Place?" The writers that participated, printed here, offer thoughtful reflections on our responses to September 11 and the war on tenorism.

Also in this issue local poet David Biespiel reflects on the process of reading new writing and shares his decisions for our annual contest for best student work submitted during the 2002-03 year. This is the second year we have invited a local writer of prominence to review the student writing contained in the year's two issues and select what he or she believes represents the best work. Our intention in enlisting a local writer, rather than student judges, is two-fold. First, asking an outside and professional writer gives the contest editorial integrity. Second, student writers are given the opportunity to have their work read and noticed by a member of the local literary community, potentially opening doors for future publication.

This issue, like previous issues, will be distributed at places like Kennedy School, The Dahlia Cafe, and other restaurants and galleries in the Concordia and Alberta neighborhoods. If you have a connection with a local outlet-restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, and galleries are often willing to distribute free reading material-please let us know. And if you enjoy the writers you read within, let them know; there's no better way to encourage the literary arts at Concordia.