Word Salad with Oil, Vinegar, and May I Grind Your Pepper?

So, Friday night I began reading Richard Canning's second volume of interviews with gay (male) novelists, Hear Us Out (Columbia, 2003). I love reading interviews with writers, and these promised to be meaty and substantial.Unfortunately Canning allows himself to chatter away in the introduction, and at one point he writes this (xi-xii):Too many academics in our field have preferred to write