Flynn, Elizabeth. "A Note From the Editor." 	
					Reader 20 (1988): i. 
					<http://www.hu.mtu.edu/reader/online/20/note20.html>. 

This issue of Reader, a celebration of the work of Louise Rosenblatt, has been an entirely pleasurable collaboration. The idea came to me after reading an annotated bibliography of Rosenblatt's work prepared by one of our graduate students. The bibliography somehow dropped out of the picture, but the idea remained. John Clifford seemed a likely guest editor as he had studied with Rosenblatt at New York University and has been strongly influenced by her work. He was enthusiastic about the idea and, in fact, decided to develop the issue into a book to be published by Heinemann-Boynton/Cook. The book will include the five original essays published here (some in revised form) and approximately ten more.

I first met Louise Rosenblatt at a small conference in Duluth, Minnesota nine years ago, the fall that I came to Michigan Tech and shortly after The Reader, the Text, the Poem was published. As I recall, I had the good fortune of sitting next to her at lunch. Since then I've chatted with her at conferences, used her books in conference papers and articles, and taught Literature as Exploration and The Reader, the Text, the Poem. My most recent contact has resulted from work on this issue. Louise has been most helpful sending us her slightly revised article on disk, helping with our conversion of the essay from APA format to MLA format, and commenting on the other articles included here. I now feel an especially strong bond with her since I learned in one of our many late-summer phone conversations that her son was born when she was 43 and mid-career. I was eight months pregnant at the time, and age 43. When she opened the announcement of the birth of my daughter Kate, born September second, she called immediately.

What I find most appealing about Rosenblatt's work is its directness and lack of jargon. She does not write to impress or to obfuscate but to transact with her reader, to communicate clearly. I would go so far as to say hers is a feminine style, motivated by a desire to connect rather than dominate. The theoretical model she develops is also feminine–reader, text, and context lose their distinct boundaries and their positions in a hierarchy of relationships as they merge in the reading transaction.

I'm delighted to have this opportunity to celebrate Louise Rosenblatt's clarity, her insight, and her endurance.

Elizabeth Flynn