I'll close with this: I distinctly remember sitting in the audience of a roundtable discussion at that early conference at Illinois State. And I remember it because something one of the panelists said that night has stuck with me all these years later. The panel was discussing the random acts of kindness Wallace's former students ascribed to their teacher little things, like leaving overgenerous feedback in their papers' margins or giving them a lift when it was cold or they had a long way to walk. And what this tenured panelist said was that, as a professional academic who published on Wallace, she had to "ignore all that 'big heart stuff.'

It will surprise no one that I reject this cold, sterile reasoning even more now than I did in that dark, enormous conference room over a decade ago. Because that "big heart stuff" is why this incredible community of readers exists at all. Underneath all of Wallace's incisive observations, technical brilliance, and literary artistry, it's what drew us to the work in the first place.