about us  A
Note From The Executive Poobah of Haute Dish
Hi, I'm Clint Weathers, the Managing
Editor of Haute Dish. I prefer the title Executive Poobah, actually.
I think it more accurately describes my role in the revival
of Haute Dish and its transformation from a yearly print journal
to a thrice-yearly online journal. How does Executive Poobah
more accurately describe my role? Simple! It makes it into a
non-role – the role of the person who just makes sure
things are moving along, the person who stands up to take the
whoopin' when things go wrong, the person who assembles the
team, calls the meetings (and religiously shows up five minutes
late for them) and most importantly, the person who makes sure
that everyone reading this knows that it was the team who made
this happen – not me. I'm just Captain Steubing on this
Love Boat.
The revival of Haute Dish almost didn't
happen. It almost didn't happen more than once, come to think
of it. Haute Dish had a true literary legacy behind it, one
not to be taken lightly. In its print form, Haute Dish had
won national awards for literary excellence in 2001. Dr. Lawrence
Moe had planted into my noggin the seed of contributing to
Haute Dish three years back when I started at Metro. When
I asked him this summer if it was going to be in print again,
he pointed me to Dr. Anne Aronson. Little did I know, Dr.
Aronson had been conspiring with award-winning novelist Alison
McGhee to make it a reality. I didn't think I was anywhere
near up to the task of contributing to Haute Dish, let alone
working on the staff. I found out that there was a catch --
they told me it would be an online journal – not a print
journal. Then they sprung the real catch on me -- they said
they thought I'd make a good managing editor and do I want
the job? My mom always said, “Fake it till you make
it!” so I said yes and away we went. Alison and Dr.
Aronson got me the one thing I needed more than anything else
to make it happen – a truly wonderful faculty advisor,
Suzanne Nielsen. Acting not only as my faculty advisor
but my mentor, she listened and accepted my ideas, but added
her own – providing much needed reality checks at times
– and helped set the concrete goals that defined success
for the project. Most importantly to me, she helped me to
realize that I once was an artist – a decade ago as
a writer struggling in Kansas City – and now I am again,
in the Twin Cities as a photographer.
Suzanne recommended an absolutely top-flight
staff to work with:
Kristin Johnson, a Master's degree candidate and already
Associate Editor of The Metropolitan. Kristin brought us the
boots-on-the-ground practical experience we needed. Her never
say die attitude carried us through more than once when things
got rocky and her ideas about literature helped make me like
writing and writers again.
Eric Miklasevics, another Master's degree candidate.
Eric brought a wonderful sense of the literary, and helped
me realize that not all writers are black turtleneck and beret
wearing, latte-sipping artistes.
Diane Bennion, our artist-in-residence who provided
us with a brilliant flair for design, relief from our panic
attacks, and the occasional Californian Jumping Pig.
Sara McDonald and the rest of the Design Team from
the Technical Communications program's Document Design class
created the beautiful website that you see. If it weren't
for her and her team, you'd be looking at plain HTML 1.0 on
a plain white background written in Notepad. Her patience
has been infinite and the team's work is fantastic.
There are a host of other people
who deserve my thanks, blessings, or a box of nice chocolate
in no order whatsoever: Erica Rasmussen and her new baby,
Dr. Brian Nerney, Dr. Suzanne Walfoort, Dr. Lawrence Moe,
Dr. Anne Aronson, Alison McGhee, Dr. Maythee Kantar, Fred
Carpenter, Dr. Mark Matthews, Angela Cross (who has put up
with much too much out of me during the last semester), and
last but not least, the really annoying guy who sat about
halfway back in the room during the inaugural section of CWA
200.
The Spring 2005 issue of Haute Dish is dedicated to
the memory of James Arthur Weathers. Thanks, Grampa.
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Spring
2005
