“With a mingling of gratitude, grief, and joy”: Dappled Things Announces Editorial Change

With a mingling of gratitude, grief, and joy, I write this to let you all know that SS. Peter & Paul 2024 is my final issue as editor in chief of Dappled Things magazine. After this issue, I will remain on the magazine’s board as editor emeritus—serving in an advisory capacity, but no longer involved in the journal’s day-to-day decision making and operations. But it is with great trust and relief that I hand this responsibility over to our incoming editor in chief, Rhonda Ortiz. 

Katy Carl, editor emeritus

Before I introduce her, I hope you’ll allow me to say a few words in retrospect about our time together.

When, in 2007, Bernardo Aparicio García invited me to become editor in chief of a then-fledgling Dappled Things magazine, I felt a surprise similar to the sensation Rhonda describes below: who, me? For Bernardo saw quickly and by intuition what I only learned slowly and by experience: that a Catholic literature for the twenty-first century—a Catholic literature that is at once confessionally Catholic in its particularity and small-c catholic in its universality, a literature that accounts fully for the facts of the Fall without losing sight of the reality of the Redemption—can only be thoroughly fostered by working artists and writers who are actively laboring to instantiate it. Having the idea is not enough. We also must embody the idea. 

As many will know, I took a long childrearing-and-freelancing hiatus between 2011 and 2017, during which I served the magazine as associate editor and Meredith McCann steered our ship with so much grace and capability. Under Meredith’s tenure, the journal grew to dimensions we’d hoped for but hadn’t previously achieved. When I took the helm again in 2017, with Meredith in the role of poetry editor, it could not be a case of sailing the same river twice. Dappled Things had transformed from start-up endeavor to fully realized community.

It was during that period of growth and transformation—in 2014, to be exact—that Rhonda Ortiz first joined the Dappled Things editorial board, serving as art director and then webmaster. Rhonda is a founding editor of Chrism Press, WhiteFire Publishing’s imprint for Catholic and Orthodox Christian voices. Dappled Things has birthed several literary projects, and Chrism Press is one—Rhonda’s co-founder, Karen Ullo, is Dappled Things’ former managing editor. Rhonda is also a novelist and a contributor to various media outlets. Of particular interest to our readers is her Catholic World Report essay on the place of popular fiction in Catholic arts and letters. With an eye to her unique involvement in the wider Christian literary ecosystem, we are all delighted to welcome Rhonda to the role of editor in chief. 

Personally, I’m grateful to Rhonda not only for her friendship but also for her witness, tenacity, talent, drive, and irrepressible hope, without which the magazine could not continue in its current form. May she preside over many more years of Dappled Things’ growth in grace and favor; I am excited to see where she will lead our community next.

Rhonda Ortiz:

Rhonda Ortiz, incoming editor in chief

Thank you, Katy. Dappled Things would not be what it is today without your vision and years of shepherding. Your intellectual and artistic talents are surpassed only by your wisdom and unfailing kindness. To say that I have large shoes to fill would be a gross understatement, and I am relieved to know that you will remain on the board in an advisory role. Working with you has been a pleasure.

As Katy says, I have ample editorial experience. However, my decade with Dappled Things has been spent working in production, and I never anticipated an invitation to become editor in chief. Like Moses at the burning bush, my knee jerk reaction was, “Who, me?” Thankfully, Bernardo and Katy’s confidence coupled with my husband’s encouragement prevailed. I look forward to working with our talented staff to continue the magazine’s mission of advancing Catholic arts and letters.

Finally, let me offer my hearty congratulations to Katy on her appointment as writer in residence of the University of St. Thomas’s MFA program. I can’t wait to see what your future holds. Thank you again for your continued service to the Catholic literary community. Our prayers are with you.