I'm writing this at the end of October, the season of ghosts, and you're reading it early in the new year, a time of change and fresh beginnings. Both are appropriate to the moment. This is my final issue as editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but editors—like ghosts—linger a while after they pass. It would be the height of cruelty to leave the story cupboards bare for the next editor before she had a chance to even get started, so I can safely promise new work coming soon from old friends of the magazine like Robert Grossbach, Megan Lindholm, Madeleine E. Robins, Harry Turtledove, and Nick Wolven. Recent contributors like Rebecca Campbell, Meg Ellison, Corey Flintoff, and Cat Rambo will also be returning, and they'll be joined by writers making their first appearances here, including Marie Brennan, James Enge, C. L. Polk, and Molly Tanzer.

Leaving the magazine to return to my own writing would be more bittersweet if I weren't passing the reins to the capable hands of Sheree Renée Thomas, who, among her many accomplishments, has won two World Fantasy Awards for editing the Dark Matter anthologies. As a long-time reader of both F&SF and her work, I'm excited to see how the magazine evolves next under her stewardship.

F&SF's readers are the best in the world, deeply smart, sharp-eyed, with high expectations. It's been a privilege sharing so many brilliant writers with you these past six-plus years.

—C. C. Finlay