The way I became editor of the Virginia Review is not what many of you might think. It all started out rather suddenly when the previous editor quit halfway through putting together a magazine. To give you some context, Governor Gerald Baliles was on that cover. I’d been doing some freelance writing and graphics, and had my own company for a couple of years. As the newly appointed editor of a bimonthly magazine, I discovered a whole new world. Before I knew it, I was chin high in magazine guts at my dining room table trying to fit the bits and parts of the incomplete magazine together. Layout was a mystery to me, and proofreading as well as editing were like foreign languages. There were a lot of late nights, tears, and drama with a capital “D.” That was 20 years ago this year.