Paul Vermeersch

from the editor: what’s in a motto?

Dear reader,

What’s in a motto? The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing has one: “Reading for pleasure. Writing for everyone.” It’s no accident that our motto places reading before writing; a good writer hones their craft through reading, and without readers, writing has nowhere to go, no mind to reach and reside in after it leaves the page. But what do we mean by “reading for pleasure”?
I fear this phrase is too often interpreted to mean a kind of “dumbed-down” form of reading, with all the unfortunate ableism that phrase entails, while it conjures up pejorative descriptions like “trashy” or pigeonholes popular writing into vague categories like “escapist” or “provocative” or even “obscene.” And let’s not overlook the sexist implications of the “trashy” label, as it is most often applied to romance novels, erotica, and other genres that are especially popular with women readers. After all, you never see books about war, or sports heroes, or infamous businessmen—the kind of books frequently marketed as Father’s Day gifts—described as “trashy.”
Experimental poetry can be just as pleasurable as science fiction. Cultural criticism can be just as pleasurable as food writing or fantasy or young adult romance. I dislike the idea that something enjoyable must therefore be trash as much as I detest the idea that anything intellectual must therefore be dull, so let’s do away with the puritanical idea that anything done for pleasure must be somehow lesser, or tawdry, or cheap. Besides, in the right hands, even so-called trash or junk can be both intellectual and enjoyable—just ask Marcel Duchamp, or Robert Rauschenberg, or Oscar the Grouch.
We do our best to offer a variety of pleasurable reading experiences in the pages of The Ampersand Review, and we hope we have succeeded once again with this issue. Your enjoyment will be the mark of our success. If you’ve been reading us from the beginning, thank you. If this is your first time picking up a copy, we hope you’ll be back. And to keep you coming back, we have a lot of exciting initiatives in the works to stay engaged with our readers, so visit our website and follow us on social media to stay connected and up to date with everything we have to offer. We hope you’ll join us again in Winter 2024 for Issue No. 5.

Let’s all celebrate and have a good time,

Paul Vermeersch
June, 2023

Paul Vermeersch is the editor-in-chief of The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing