New journal to be published

Jonathan Ellis, our correspondent in the UK, has just alerted me to a new development out of Penn State University – the publication of a new journal, Bishop-Lowell Studies. It was only a matter of time before such a project manifested and with its stellar editorial board, this journal will attract the top Bishop/Lowell scholars writing today. As was observed to me from our correspondent, Bishop has become “iconic” – and then some, and not only in the academy. My hope is that there will be a wide definition for contributions, so that not only the hard-core literary criticism will be included, but also deep explorations of the wider interest in Bishop among artists of all disciplines (for example, a serious look at the film treatments of Bishop to date, especially since a new documentary film by Nova Scotian film-maker John Scott, who teaches at Ithaca College, is due out in the near future; also, I was recently asked by poet and playwright Malcolm Willison, of Schenectady and Key West, if anyone has looked closely at how Bishop has been treated in plays and fiction – and I wonder if Lowell has received this kind of attention from the wider artistic community). It will be interesting to watch this endeavour unfold and evolve.