Dear readers,

You may note that we have decided to drop News from the title of our magazine. I argued for an expansive definition of the new--as in Ezra Pound's statement: "Literature is news that stays news."

And as William Carlos Williams wrote in Asphodel, That Greeny Flower: "My heart rouses thinking to bring you news of something that concerns you and concerns many men. Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is fount there."

However, my more literally minded colleagues felt that these days the "News" has become too restrictive to convey what we are trying to do, which is as broad as the Great Basin. So as of this issue we are simply that: Great Basin. We'll still be a quarterly of journalism,literature, and art, and we'll still bring you news that matters.

Yours Truly, Jon, Christensen, Editor