Per her Facebook page, Kathryn Lang spent her last day of employment as Senior Editor at SMU Press yesterday. The status update doesn't state anything more than that, but if one recalls last March it was announced that the Provost of the University was looking into shutting down this venerable institution. Then in May it was suggested to send letters (and in the comments of this blog, perhaps small checks of donation) explaining just why the press was needed, to said Provost.
While I've not read anything that specifically states so, the removal of the wonderful Ms. Lang as Senior Editor there leads me to believe we should all be more than ready to hear that the press has taken a new direction sometime soon and is no longer publishing the wonderful literary fiction and non-fiction that we've seen the last decade or so from the trio that ran the press. Authors like Mitch Wieland, Debra Monroe, Alan Wier, Janet Peery, George Garrett, Tracy Daugherty, Sam Michel, W.P. Kinsella, Liza Wieland, Anthony Bukowski, Edward Falco and so many more.
It's simply sad. I can only hope that more and more people continue to be willing to start up new publishing ventures and authors like these can continue to find homes for their work.
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