This summer issue appears close on the heels of the 17^th annual meeting of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS), the publisher of Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). We come away from SDS' meeting, held in St. Louis this year, excited by all the ground-breaking work underway in Disability Studies. The papers that were presented arose from a wonderful array of scholarly disciplines, ranging from theater to anthropology to public health education, to name just a few. We encouraged a number of presenters to fashion their papers for submission to DSQ.

Even if we did not get to hear your paper or meet you at SDS, we encourage you to consider submitting your SDS paper or other Disability Studies work to DSQ. In addition to scholarly papers, short fiction, and poetry, all of which receive anonymous peer review, the categories for submission include "commentary" or essays that are reviewed by us as the co-Editors. When you make your submission, please remember that we accept work only in electronic form, i.e., by email or on disk. This requirement is a matter of efficiency in the peer review and editing process, as well as cost control. Therefore, please do not mail us your work in paper format.

Having conferred with the SDS Board about plans for DSQ, we have begun a process that will take the journal into a new phase by the end of 2004. Three features of our plans are key. First: We plan to initiate "password protection" on the DSQ web site, which means that only subscribers (including but not limited to members of SDS, for whom a subscription is a benefit of membership) will be able to access each issue's content. Second: We expect to arrange for DSQ's inclusion in at least one multidisciplinary academic library database, such as EBSCO. Those two steps are related, and taken together will enhance the stability and recognition of DSQ, and the work of authors represented there.

Third: In another decision that helps to support DSQ, we have begun accepting advertising. Starting with this issue, advertising will appear on each issue's Table of Contents page. Besides its revenue potential, advertising can be a service through its important informational component (note that some ads are not paid, but represent an opportunity for exchange of exposure). Ads taken in DSQ tend to be from book publishers who are featuring Disability Studies titles or from magazines that feature disability content. Therefore, we encourage you to support our advertisers precisely because they may have information that is useful in your Disability Studies work, and can give wider exposure to work you publish in DSQ. If you know someone interested in advertising, please direct that person to: http://www.dsq-sds-archives.org/advertising.html for more information.

In closing, we are confident you will find much to savor in this Summer issue of DSQ. It is the second time DSQ has focused a theme issue on geography; the prior occasion being nearly three years ago, in Fall 2001. The current issue also features the first poetry published under our editorship, as well as a commentary on euthanasia, a paper on disability in German cinema, and several stimulating reviews of books, plays, and movies. We continue to be encouraged by the wide variety of interesting and thought-provoking submissions we receive. We hope you see yourself in that company, and trust that this issue will encourage you to polish up that Disability Studies project you have been working on, and email it to us for consideration for DSQ. Contact us if you have any questions about submitting.

Beth Haller, Ph.D. & Corinne Kirchner, Ph.D.

Co-Editors, DSQ