New Believer is out!

No, that's not some prototype for this month's cover—the whited-out parts are an extension of Jeannie Vanasco's essay, "Absent Things As If They Are Present," one of the last pieces that I edited. It's a lovely, learned piece, combining memoir with a smart take on the aesthetics of erasure—one of my pet interests, fittingly enough. (Discussed are Tom Phillips's A Humument and Jen Bervin's NETS, both of which I regularly taught to my Gallatin students, as well as Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes, the Jefferson Bible, Mary Ruefle's A Little White Shadow, and more.)

Also in this issue—a great Meghan Daum piece about her encounter with online venom, Daniel Handler/Greil Marcus/Nick Hornby/Jack Pendarvis columnic brilliance, Alec Michod talking to Fred Tomaselli, Amanda Stern chewing the fat with Laurie Anderson, Michael Schulman on Polari (postwar UK gay argot), Benjamin Weissman, Blake Butler, and (what a treat) Laird Hunt talking to the one and only Harry Mathews. And of course there's MORE...

*

There's always more—but for me, no more, on the Believer front.

In the notes and apologies area of this issue is an amazing, tear-jerking (but funny) piece about...well...me.

It's been a wonderful I-can't-believe-it's-been-nine years. I'm too choked up to get into it right now....I'll save it for my memoirs...........oh, some exclamation points for my amazing brilliant co-editors and constant inspirations: Heidi! Vendela! Andrew!...Dave of course!.....Ross! Karolina!..Andi!...Sheila!...Meehan!...Matthew Derby of yore—Jason Polan—Brandon Stosuy!...Max!...and all the terrific writers and artists (I'm not even going to begin to list them)...(maybe I'll do a post some day and try to list all of them, the ones I've worked with.....)

The farewell asks, "What will we do without Ed Park?" Simple! Continue being the best magazine around!

(I'm blown away by this illo from the pen of Tony Millionaire.)