Dear Osgoode,
My brief time as Editor-in-Chief has come to pass, and with it, our goodbye to Volume 96. In this office, I’ve consciously tried to act more a messenger for the words of others than as a writer at large, but if you’ll indulge this brief episode of hubris, I’d like to pen a more personal letter, so that we may make our farewells proper.
I hope you liked the print—I thought it a charming revival, even if it was coloured by the irony that this paper has always been in that form for almost all its history. That was a theme this time around: Returning to conventions as novelty. Not everything worked, but all of it was worth a try. We frame things like this as “accomplishments,” though I think success is a reductive metric. The joy is in the experimentation and experience in stacking all these paragraphs and looking for that word that’s just right; the smug thrill from writing a sentence of higher order. A funny line at just the perfect turn. An understanding you have with another person through only their verse.
I was very lucky to have had an outlet in Obiter for all three years here. It’s something which has always made a lot of sense amid a setting where very little often did. It must have made sense to a lot of others, because even as student journalism is trying to fight its way out of neglect, it’s hardly wanted for more conspirators by its side. Year-by-year I’ve witnessed writing so witty, so vulnerable, and so sincere put together by people grateful to work for the paper, all for scant reward—just for the love of writing and all aspects of its making.
That making is owed to all those who’ve come before and will come after—I myself am quite indebted to the previous Editors-in-Chief from my earlier years on Obiter: Sam (vol. 94) and Meredith (vol. 95). A more current gratitude I owe is to this year’s incredible staff: From the editors and deputy editors who’ve seen that our pages are always brim with writing, to the copy department ensuring meticulous and correct sentences, and to all the writers from all walks who’ve eagerly shared their voices. No less is warranted to the departments for business, online, illustration, communications, and layout—without whom the paper could not be realised and distributed. I am sure that this great work will no doubt continue under Lina’s inspired leadership in the upcoming volume 97, sure to reach those horizons by us unseen.
There’s always more that could be said, and more that could have been done, but now that’s up to you. Involvement in the paper has always felt ephemeral because of its brevity, but in a way more beautiful than disappointing—a knowledge that every passing volume is an individual character shaped by each passing generation, and that things are never quite left unsaid in Obiter. I won’t see you again next year; well, not like this at least. But I’m glad that our times together were lively.