Due to his election as MELUS president, Dr. Christopher González is stepping down from his role as book review editor for MELUS. Dr. González is a renowned scholar and professor of English at Southern Methodist University, where he holds the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Endowed Chair. With expertise in twentieth-century American literature, multiethnic literatures, film, comics, and narrative theory, Dr. González is the author, coauthor, and editor of numerous books, including Reel Latinxs: Representation in U.S. Film and TV (U of Arizona P, 2019), which won the 2020 International Latino Book Award, and Permissible Narratives: The Promise of Latino/a Literature (Ohio State UP, 2017), awarded Honorable Mention for the 2019 Perkins Prize for the most significant contribution to narrative studies. His commitment to diversity and representation in literature and media is reflected in his work, research, and teaching. He earned his PhD from the Ohio State University, where he was affiliated with the world-famous Project Narrative. His expertise and professionalism have been a significant asset to the book review section, and we thank him for his service to the journal.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Lesley Larkin will be assuming the MELUS book review editor role. Dr. Larkin is a professor of English at Northern Michigan University, where she teaches courses in African American literature, American literature (1865-present), literary and critical theory, and gender studies, and where she was the 2020 recipient of NMU’s Distinguished Faculty Award. She is the author of two books, Race and the Literary Encounter: Black Literature from James Weldon Johnson to Percival Everett (Indiana UP, 2015) and Reading in the Postgenomic Age: Race, Discipline, and Bionarrativity in Contemporary North American Literature (Ohio State UP, 2025), and the coeditor of The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction, 1980-2020 (Wiley, 2022). Her scholarship has also been published in a variety of academic venues, including Callaloo, The Hastings Center Report, and MELUS; in 2013, her essay on Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters received the Katharine Newman MELUS Best Essay Award. Dr. Larkin has contributed to numerous diversity initiatives at NMU, including the development of the University’s first Diversity Officer position and the creation of a Diversity Common Reader Program, now in its thirteenth year. She earned her PhD at the University of Washington, where she attended her first MELUS Conference in 2002. She is thrilled to take on this new role with MELUS!