Letter from the Editor

摘要

Sharing stories about the work that is happening in hand papermaking is at the core of this publication.But who gets to tell them,and how are we determining which stories make it into our pages? These are some of the questions that board and staff are currently asking as we interrogate our position and processes as a publisher.Feminist theorist bell hooks,in her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom(1994),challenges teachers(here I sub in"publishers"for"teachers")to disrupt the notion of the teacher,at the head of the classroom,as the definitive and immutable body of knowledge.Instead,hooks urges teachers to create a classroom as a"community of learners together....a space where we're all in power in different ways."An important strategy for creating such an environment is to emphasize voice by making space for personal narratives that link experiential knowledge with theory and information.With this in mind,we explore Oral Histories in this issue,how they differ from,complement,and in many instances offer on-the-spot revelations that do not reveal themselves as readily in traditional writing destined for print.Recording the life stories of our practitioners via interviewing and conversation is a critical way to document a person's lifework,to track the progress of a field,and to get to heart-truths that emerge in the moment when people sit together and talk.Oral histories have also been a way to center marginalized voices and preserve the stories of those underrecognized in their time.