Recently, we've been thumbing through back issues of WCJ in preparation for another project. As we researched, we noticed that these "From the Editors" sections have gone through several incarnations over the years (or, perhaps we should say, over the various editorships). Early issues offer insight into the editorial process. In 4.2, for example, Brannon and North apologize for their delay in disseminating the issue by explaining the difficulties with production and layout when dealing with

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... then-new technology of the personal computer. "Computers," they write, "are a lot like their human designers: They don't really like to talk to one another, and they guard the differences in their languages rather jealously" (n.p.). Once WCJ worked out these technical kinks, the editors were able to turn their attention to the content of the issue. By 7.2, Kinkead and Harris consider the thematic links between the articles. Their "From the Editors" section begins with a fictionalized job announcement for a writing center tutor, complete with a list of qualifications. This issue, according to the editors, "focuses on the complex person and the complex relationship between tutor and tutee" (n.p.). Mullin and DeCiccio's "From the Editors" grew increasingly extended and discursive, a tradition we have continued (and probably extended ourselves). As we sit down to draft this issue's section, we can't help but wonder about the extent to which our initial thoughts organize and direct the experiences of our readers. Perhaps Dave Healy had it right: During his editorship (which fell between Grimm, George and Lotto and Mullin and DeCiccio), he did away with the "From the Editors" section altogether. In 15.? (his second issue as editor and his last "From the Editors" piece), he notes, "I find that taking over a publication has occasioned a fair amount of announcing from me in these first two issues, but now that I'm getting that out of my system I intend to fade into the background, where editors, like umpires, belong" (n.p.). The first article in this issue, Becky Howard's "Deriving Backwriting from Writing ßacfc," certainly gave us pause in forwarding these comments. Howard's article is adapted from the keynote address delivered in Hershey, PA, at the joint conference of the 2003 International Writing Centers Association and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing. Howard distinguishes between the post-colonial term writing back , a collocation designed to highlight "the experience of a colonized community after the moment of political independence" from backwrìting, a concept she views