This is an exciting time for Studies in Canadian Literature/ Études en littérature canadienne as we move into a new editorial era for the journal. As we begin our tenure as editorial partners, we are looking forward to undertaking some new initiatives for the journal in the coming years. We also welcome thoughts and input from readers. If you have any ideas that you would like to propose to us (future special issues, conference or workshop initiatives, special interviews, digital collaborations, or other CanLit-related activities), please write to us! We are open to ideas from our readership in Canada and internationally.

This issue of Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne is our first as co-editors and completes what has been a two-year editorial transition at the journal. Two years ago, Herb Wyile took over from Jennifer Andrews as co-editor and had the pleasure of working with John Ball, who was at the helm of the journal for seventeen years, as co-editor on the last two issues, before John stepped down to be replaced by Cynthia Sugars. The first thing we would like to do as co-editors is to thank John for his patience, guidance, and wisdom during this transition and to express our appreciation to John and Jennifer Andrews for all the work that they have put in over the years to make SCL/ÉLC the leading journal of Canadian literary criticism that it is. Over the course of the two years of editorial transition, two things have been very clear and have made that transition a smooth one for us both. The first is that SCL/ÉLC is an extremely well-run journal, and, for that, credit goes to our predecessors and to our managing editor, Kathryn Taglia, and our design editor Ian LeTourneau (as well as our able team of copy editors and proofreaders). The second is that SCL/ ÉLC is fortunate enough to have an advisory board made up of diligent, constructive, and reliable expert readers. Our advisory board members make what we do a whole lot easier and more satisfying than it might otherwise be. And finally, we would like to express our appreciation for the continuing loyalty and engagement of you, our readers.

It is with great excitement that the two of us look ahead to our editorial role, as there is much in store over the next couple of years. Taking shape nicely is our first issue for 2014, a special issue on Canadian Literary Ecologies, with the University of Calgary’s Pamela Banting as guest editor. Pamela, one of the founding members (and the first president) of the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada (ALECC), has helped us put together a fabulous collection of essays on ecological and ecocritical topics. This collection promises to be one of SCL/ÉLC’s most substantial and significant special issues. A Call for Papers has already been circulated for a special issue on South Asian Canadian Literature, to be guest-edited by Mariam Pirbhai from Wilfrid Laurier University and slated to appear in 2015. A number of essays in this issue will commemorate the Komagata Maru, which arrived off the coast of Vancouver around this time in 1914. Finally, plans are also in the works for a special 2016 issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the appearance of Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne (1976-2016), and you will see a Call for Papers for that anniversary collection in the back pages of our next issue. This special issue, Canada: The Last Forty Years, will look back on the past four decades in Canadian literary production and scholarship, a period that has witnessed enormous theoretical and generic shifts in the field, not to mention the formation of Canadian literature as an academic field of study. Please consider submitting a paper for our anniversary issue! We will also be organizing a special session at Congress 2015 in Ottawa on this topic (and will be celebrating our anniversary in person), so please join us for that as well.

This year we have undertaken two important new initiatives. The first is a collaboration with the Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (CACLALS) to promote their prize for the best student paper presented at the association’s annual conference at the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. SCL/ÉLC is providing a complimentary two-year subscription to the finalists for the prize, as well as an invitation to the finalists to submit their expanded papers to the journal for consideration. Thank-you to Dorothy Lane, the current president of CACLALS, for her help in organizing this. More significantly, SCL/ÉLC is establishing a new student essay prize that will be awarded annually by the journal. We are pleased to announce that the prize will be named in honour of Gwendolyn Davies, a respected scholar of Canadian literature and Professor Emerita at the University of New Brunswick. The Gwendolyn Davies Prize in Canadian Criticism will be awarded annually to the best critical essay on Canadian literature, in English or French, submitted to the journal by a graduate or undergraduate student. The award will consist of $500, a year’s subscription to the journal, and publication in SCL/ÉLC. This prize will not only recognize an important scholar of Canadian literature, but it will also encourage the work of future scholars in the field.

We would like to express our deep sadness about the passing of our colleague Renate Eigenbrod at the University of Manitoba, who died suddenly in May 2014. We remember her devotion and energy in the field of Canadian Indigenous Studies with enormous respect and admiration. Her death is an immense loss to the field of Canadian literature.

We hope you enjoy the diverse range of articles in this volume. It has been a pleasure working with so many fellow Canadianists — authors, board members, subscribers, readers. We look forward to the years ahead. Visit us for our anniversary session in Ottawa in 2015 and celebrate with us in person!