Readers and friends: As I step down from my post to give my full attention to my family, it delights me to welcome Meredith Wise as the new editor in chief of Dappled Things. A graduate of Christendom College and the University of Kentucky, she has been part of the Dappled Things editorial staff since 2008. I am confident that the magazine will continue to flourish in her capable hands.

Within the past five years, this editorial staff has transformed Dappled Things together. No longer an online-only start-up venture run by fresh-from-college kids, it is now the premier, indeed the only, English-language literary quarterly in print that is intended specifically for writers in the Catholic tradition. It is a great privilege to have been a part of this transformation.

Editing shares some traits with mothering: sleeplorn nights, intense attention, and passionate interest in minutiae of detail that may seem irrelevant to less involved minds. But they are not irrelevant. When one gives them the care they merit, their necessity becomes obvious. Meredith is ready and able to give Dappled Things the care it merits. Right now, my care is needed elsewhere.

This is not goodbye, though. I look forward to returning to my previous role as an associate editor and continuing to work with all of you under Meredith’s leadership.

Katy Carl

“The recurring motif in cinema of a freshly finished manuscript being scattered by the wind or burned in a fire is far more savage a drama than the computer crash that modern authors contend with.” So contends Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award-winner Craig Thompson in this brief reflection on traveling with print books.

I just returned from a three-month book tour and was discouraged to see eBooks as the requisite travel accessory, the airports littered with travelers hunched over smart phones and Kindles and iPads. It’s true, Bolaño’s 2666 takes up a lot of space in your carry-on bag, but that’s the point! It’s like a pet that requires a 5am walk. The heft is a symbol of commitment —a marriage band.

I have to admit I agreed with him right up until the point where I got a Kindle for Christmas. What say you, readers?

Brian Joseph Davis shows us the face of The Misfit, Edward Rochester, Emma Bovary, and more – using the latest technology. Readers are invited to submit descriptive passages from literary works to Davis’ website, where he uses law enforcement composite sketch software to bring the characters to life. Tour the gallery (we were intrigued by the “silver fox” appearance of The Misfit, in keeping with our latest issue’s focus on Flannery) and submit your own ideas at http://thecomposites.tumblr.com/.

What do you think of the sketches so far – are they just as you pictured?

A very important message was just sent to all subscribers to the Dappled Things email listserve. In a nutshell, while our fundraising campaign brought in some generous donations, we are still running short of what we need to keep Dappled Things going during the coming year. Please click here to read a more detailed account of our current situation. If you can help, please donate securely with a credit or debit card by clicking here, or send a check, payable to Dappled Things Magazine to:

Dappled Things Magazine

600 Giltin Drive

Arlington, TX 76006

A very big thanks to everyone who has already contributed!

The upcoming edition of Dappled Things (due out at the end of January) features three essays that explore the work of Flannery O’Connor from different perspectives. The author of one of these essays, Fr. Damian Ference, has written a great little introduction to her life and work over at the Word On Fire blog:

At first glance, O’Connor’s writing may not seem very Catholic. Her grotesque stories are mostly set in the Protestant South and are filled with wild, hilarious and often bigoted characters who take the Lord’s name in vain, steal, murder, and rape. Such content doesn’t seem to match the lifestyle of a daily communicant and admirer of Thomas Aquinas. Yet that is precisely what makes O’Connor so good.

Click here for more.

Those who perceive in themselves… the artistic vocation as poet, writer, sculptor, painter, musician, and actor feel at the same time an obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in order to put it to service of their neighbor and the humanity as a whole. (Pope John Paul II)

Friends—

Those of us who envision—and are working toward—a Catholic literary renewal need to recognize the vital importance of literary magazines. Literary magazines are the proving ground—the arena in which younger writers can first have their voices heard, and older writers can experiment with new concepts, new ways of expressing things.

Enter Dappled Things. In 2005, a group of Catholic university and graduate students decided—correctly—that there was a crying need for a Catholic literary magazine. DT  has flourished—publishing excellent fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork—reaching a growing readership and gaining recognition as an important player in the literary world.

DT is brought to press entirely through the voluntary work of some of the best young editors in America. They need and deserve our support. This year they are working to further the magazine’s mission in many ways—

• Increasing subscribers
• Reaching out to libraries and to Catholic colleges and high schools
• Getting copies of the magazine into the hands of key leaders and decision makers
• Continuously updating DT’s website (the number of readers visiting the website doubled during 2011)

Dappled Things will not survive without our support.  Please subscribe, read the magazine, recommend it to friends.  Please also send a donation (you can do so online or by check)—even a small donation helps DT to show breadth and depth of support. Those who can donate at the Silver ($250), Gold ($500), or Platinum ($750+) levels will we receive—as a thank you—a signed, limited edition print of artwork previously published in the journal, and will appear in our list of major supporters in future editions of DT. Dappled Things depends on your donations, so please consider making a gift today.

Thank you. Together we can make it possible for Dappled Things to continue its mission.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas,

Arthur G. Powers

(Arthur Powers is an award-winning author and a proud Dappled Things donor)

The Paris Review tells the story of a project begun in 1963 by Bruce McAllister, then a precocious high school student:

…McAllister sent a four-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors of literary, commercial, and science fiction. Did they consciously plant symbols in their work? he asked. Who noticed symbols appearing from their subconscious, and who saw them arrive in their text, unbidden, created in the minds of their readers? When this happened, did the authors mind?

The responses are artifacts from a time before correspondence became instantaneous. Read the whole article to see the responses McAllister received from John Updike, Ray Bradbury, Ralph Ellison, and more.

Welcome, once again, to our new website! We hope you’re enjoying it. Some areas are still in progress, so please excuse us as we put the finishing touches on the site and fix any bugs that remain.

As if the new site wasn’t change enough, there are also some important changes to the Dappled Things editorial board that we’d like to share with you. First, our managing editor John DiCamillo, one of DT‘s founding editors, is stepping down in order to better attend to his responsibilities to his new family. John has been instrumental in helping DT grow and flourish during the past six years, and will miss him very much. We are delighted to announce, however, that Janice Walker, our Art Director, will be taking over his responsibilities as new managing editor while continuing to oversee the journal’s overall design.

And speaking of design, we’re delighted to welcome Dorian Speed, our new web editor. If you like the look of the new site, you have our newest member of the board to thank for it. (If, by the way, you want your own website to look nearly as good as ours, you’d do well to enlist her services through Convolare.com, her web design company.)

We are delighted to announce that the Mary, Queen of Angels 2011 edition of Dappled Things is now available online, featuring an interview with Heather King and a brilliant mix of fiction, poetry, and visual art. Along with the new issue we are inaugurating a brand new version of our website, which will help us connect with you more easily, provide you with fresher and more accessible content, and give you a better overall experience of the site (of course, if you are not yet a subscriber, we remind you that there is no better way to experience Dappled Things than in its gorgeous printed edition). Please stop by to take a look and share your comments with us about the new issue and the new site!