NDQuesday is always pretty exciting around here, and this week is even more exciting because NDQ is taking some some dramatic, but important steps to secure its future.

For now, I can’t really talk about it, but hopefully by next NDQuesday, they’ll be something cool to announce!

Meanwhile, we’re expanding our web presence a bit by rolling out some contributions from the last print issue 84.3/4 including a serialized version of a novella, To Acknowledge Distance  by Chris Wells. This follows up on last week’s post of W. Scott Olsen’s photo essay “The Speed of Nostalgia.” I love the idea of serialized essays and fiction both because it evokes the traditions of little magazines in the first part of the 20th century when leading authors would serialize their work over various issues of Harper’s or The Atlantic, and also because it encourages a kind of slow, reflective reading where each installment of a story becomes an object to contemplate and savor.

I’m also really excited to very quietly announce the print publication of the first NDQ Supplement published in collaboration with The Digital Press. Don’t tell anyone about this, yet because I want a more formal roll out, but this might be the start of something particularly exciting for both NDQ and The Digital Press. 

Finally, as I get ready to wander over to Corwin/Larimore Hall for the morning to do some archaeology of the contemporary world, I find myself thinking a good bit about the humanities (and the university) in the age of austerity. We received a nice little gaggle of contributions for this digital volume and I’m particularly excited to think about how my archaeological interest in these two buildings and my little essay fit together. Better still, Mark Sanford, the chair of the North Dakota legislature’s higher education funding committee, will come to my class on the UND budget cuts. Convergence!!