When the COVID-19 quarantine came into effect in the spring of 2020, we at EQMM already had experience working from home. Our last few offices had space-sharing schedules, and many of the workers in the NYC office lived outside of the city. So when we got the note to stay at home, I packed up my things and headed back to Queens, knowing not much about the situation but knowing one thing for sure: I did not like to work from home. 

I was one of the only workers in the office who generally came every day. And now, I was at home with more supplies than ever, along with decades of magazines from both EQMM and AHMM when our office closed fully, and “home” was a twelve by ten foot studio apartment. We knew how to do the work remotely; were well situated for it. But I wasn’t prepared for how the work became harder during the time of crisis, and how stale that 120 square feet would become. 

We did eventually get a room in a shared office floor, which was very nice. But after a few years of that, I found myself working from home more and more by choice. I began to think about this transition recently, and it occurred to me that all of the editors of EQMM have worked from home at times or even primarily during their long tenures. 

Frederic Dannay lived in Westchester, which is something I think about when I look at his papers and correspondence. It becomes the backdrop, for me, to his writing—and whenever I hear of the towns where he lived, I think of him. Eleanor Sullivan also worked from home, which means that it was hard to track down some of her papers for our 80th anniversary symposium. But it also meant she had a lot of correspondence. 

Of course, most likely nobody is going to be looking at the editors’ of today’s email inboxes in the decades to come. But when I started thinking about why I was now thriving, I realized that being at home gave me access to all the things I had brought into my life to help me feel stronger, more diligent, and mostly more creative. I thought of Dannay, who had a large personal library; in fact, the early editions of EQMM contained many reprints from books he had collected. He had an extensive poetry collection, like myself (but mine is NYC apartment sized—it’s still just a one-bedroom, you know). And I bet he stood looking and thinking and plucked a volume from the shelf when feeling stuck. 

There’s so much guilt around productivity in our culture. I felt guilty staying home, but once I remembered the through line connection of these figures from the past, I felt like I was continuing a long lineage. And I wasn’t alone. 

So, from my luckily warm home to yours, happy holidays and winter solstice ahead, from EQMM.—Jackie Sherbow