By Rowland Russell, Managing Director

Browsing the periodicals shelves in Seattle’s Elliott Bay Bookstore, I was drawn to a journal I’d never heard of before, intriguingly dedicated to “reflective environmental practice” and filled with engaging essays and poems, beautifully illustrated. It was love at first sight. My discovery of Whole Terrain proved instrumental in my decision to undertake an Environmental Studies doctorate at Antioch University New England. I joined the editorial board in 1998—my first year as a student—and took over the role of Managing Director in 2004. With this volume on the theme of Heresy, we celebrate our twentieth year of publication.

Noted author and scientist Isaac Asimov described two types of dynamic challenges to scientific convention: endoheretics (those from within the scientific community) and exoheretics (those from without). In a number of ways, applied to the domain of publishing, Whole Terrain encompasses both of these ideas. As a literary journal, we actively solicit contributions from practitioners in the field as well as from established authors. As an environmental journal, we offer a mix of visual art, poetry, and fiction, as well as narrative essays. Rather than publish monthly or quarterly, we take an entire year to delve deeply into each theme, emphasizing nuance over novelty. We look for pieces that will endure, deepening over time like a fine wine.

We are as dedicated to hands-on learning as we are to literary excellence. Since our founding, each volume has served as a learning opportunity to one or more student editors. Many among our more than seventy editors, interns, work-study staff, and volunteers have gone on to work professionally in publishing or communications. Appropriately for our twentieth anniversary, solicitation and editing for this volume was done by the all-star array of former editors noted in the issue. We hope that you will be as inspired as I was when I first came home to Whole Terrain.