by Margaret Bauer, Editor
During this month of Thanksgiving, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for two former colleagues here at ECU, dear friends ever since, and part of the NCLR editorial team for over and almost two decades, respectively. Both are ending their service to NCLR with the content they have selected and are selecting, again respectively, for the 2026 issues, and while I am sad to see them both go – of course – I certainly understand. Both are actually retired but have continued their service to NCLR as a favor to me and a labor of love. I must let them go graciously, even as I am sad to do so.
Jeff Franklin and I joined the ECU English Department the same year, 1996, and he has served as Poetry Editor of NCLR since 2000, taking on this role not too long before he left ECU for the University of Colorado in Denver. Agreeing to serve, he stipulated that I give him the poetry anonymously. He would select based only on the poem, not the poet’s reputation.
Jeff distinguished himself throughout his quarter century (!) on staff by commenting on every poem that reached him. Every poem. Once we created our Applewhite Poetry Prize contest, that meant from around fifty to as many as about eighty one year that made it through our screeners. Speaking of gratitude, I’ve never received so many thank yous in reply to a no thank you response, and I assure you, I’ve passed on these sentiments to Jeff. Furthermore, Jeff’s feedback led us to publish more than the dozen finalists he selected for the contest judge. We have invited many of the semifinalists to revise for reconsideration in response to his suggestions. And then we typically ended up publishing the revisions.
Thank you, Jeff. I know we’ll stay in touch, and I know our poets will miss you. Enjoy those grandchildren, your children, Judy, and your new home. My head hurts over losing you (change is hard), but my heart is happy for you.
Diane Rodman, a longtime instructor in the English Department, volunteered her service to NCLR around 2007. Talking with her about where she would fit into the process (there is always so much need for help, where to start?), I learned about her interest in art and literature, particularly poetry, which is definitely not my area of expertise. Diane took charge of art acquisitions, and soon I determined we needed an Art Editor – we needed her. She taught me to complement, not illustrate the poetry and prose with fine art that reflects similar themes and tone. I think Diane also taught our incredible graphic designers to find the balance between the words and art in their layouts that highlights both the literary content and the visual art, overwhelming neither. I admit I have often not understood the connections as I looked at the art selection, but I have always been amazed by the art she has discovered – all with North Carolina connections.
Like our writers, the artists live here or have lived here, even if for their post-secondary education or a residency. Over and over, when we reach out to the artist to ask permission to use their work, they ask, “How did she find it (or me)?” I can tell you, Diane has often spent days, weeks even, on finding the right match for a single poem, story, or essay. (If we paid her by the hour . . . well, we couldn’t.) Upon sending her selections to me, Diane includes, along with detailed information that allows a student staff member to find and contact the artist or a gallery or museum, an explanation of the match to the literary work. Some years back I stopped asking if I could share these insightful, intriguing explanations. Her answer was always not to impose her vision upon the reader but to let the reader make their own connections at each page.
Thank you, Diane, for continuing this incredible service to NCLR so many years past your retirement. I reluctantly release you too to the nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and nephews – and their dogs – you’ve been enjoying so much whenever you escape me and NCLR’s constant pull upon your time. Please let me know when you’re in Beaufort County on weekends and can visit me on the river. I hope you also have time to go visit in-person all the galleries and museums across the state that you’ve been virtually visiting over these many years. We sure will miss your vision.
What we will do without Jeff and Diane is a subject for another time. This is a time for expressing gratitude to, appreciation of, and love for these dear friends of mine. I invite you to share your own thanks and accolades as well. You can email these messages to NCLRStaff@ecu.edu, inserting a thank you in the subject line to call our attention to it, and we will collect them and pass them on. And, you can of course make a donation and indicate it is in recognition of the service of such editors as Jeff and Diane, and we will inform them of your gift.
Before I knew of these retirements, this blog post was supposed to be a heads up to all that NCLR is working with an ECU Annual Giving team on a relaunch of our philanthropic outreach efforts and invite you to send your end-of-year gifts in a bit early, during this time of thanksgiving. But these subjects do go together, as this project is related to our NCLR sustainability plans, which includes the need for staff support. To be frank, Jeff, Diane, and I have had decades to inspire our labor of love for this magazine. During that time, I’ve determined that we must pay the writers and artists we publish, albeit a modest honorarium. And I am grateful to our sources of funding that have allowed us to do so since our budget is consumed by producing the magazine itself. Thank you to the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the North Carolina Arts Council, the North Caroliniana Society. These funders have also allowed us to contract part-time editorial staff as NCLR’s enterprise has expanded over the years and to pay our contracted graphic designers as we expanded from a single issue annually to four issues a year. So I’ll take this opportunity to thank, too, all of these folks. Please know how incredibly grateful I am for all you do for NCLR.
