Goodbye to Descant

Descant was one of the first literary journals I discovered when I was eighteen years old. I found it on the magazine rack in the old Yorkville Book Cellar and I marvelled at its handsome appearance and the exciting fiction and poetry inside. And when I was twenty it was the first journal to accept a story of mine; reading that acceptance letter was a thrilling experience. (My story was, not inappropriately, a satire on getting rejected, and I still remember the editor writing, "Yes, yes, yes, yes....") The journal has long been a great booster of new and young writers and it's a genuine loss to have its run end after 45 years. I'm going to drop in on the farewell celebration, tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Revival on College St. here in Toronto. I want to give editor Karen Mulhallen a hug and a thank-you. And a thanks to all the editors and staff who worked on the journal over the years.