Longtime Arkansas Times editor Max Brantley is stepping down after nearly 20 years at the helm. Lifestyle editor Lindsey Millar has been named as his replacement effective July 1.

Brantley says that his departure has been in the works since last year:

I had an opportunity last summer to spend a lot of time in thought. My daughter was hospitalized in New York with a dangerous infection. I passed the slow, nervous hours in the NYU med center ICU doing my editing duties from afar, by computer and my first-ever cell phone (an iPhone that instantly proved its utility).

I decided then, as I contemplated all the life-and-death facts you contemplate in dire health situations, that the time was near for change — for me and the newspaper. The Times has a small staff, but it’s rich in talent. Stepping aside seemed a way to open up avenues for others to advance. Change — and new ideas — can be good things.

Brantley will continue to write and blog for the paper.

He credits Millar — who has been with the paper since 2007 — with developing a revamped website, which now includes weekly podcasts and an online database of public information.

“He is particularly well-suited to respond to the changes upending the old order of news media,” he writes.