Todblog

A very merry and happy everything to everyone from EAP. As you can see from Mike Madrid’s droll photo on EAP: The Magazine, we’re heading into it with a twist and shout. And with this idea: that in order to get anything done, you have to risk looking a little dumb, taking a pratfall, or even two. Have we all got that? Good.

Special thanks to everyone who contributed so much support (and supportive messages) during our Indiegogo campaign. We were almost overwhelmed. But not quite. We can take it. Feel free to send more.

One of our key supporters was Ken Womack, author, professor, and present day Penn State Laureate. Ken is guest editor of this LIBERTY & LYRICS issue, and I had a delightful time exchanging correspondence with him about it.  We both were particularly taken with Boff Whalley’s contribution, “Anger is Energy.” Since Boff is one of the founding members of the anarchist punk rock group Chumbawamba, as well as one of the most energetically fun people I’ve ever met (the whole group is like that, come to think of it), he REALLY knows whereof he speaks.

And EAP’s favorite writing partnership, Marie Davis & Margaret Hultz, four hands with but a single voice, also supported our Indiegogo push, and asked for, as their perk, a phone call with me to talk over what was in their refrigerator and what they could make out of it for dinner. Well, they were humoring me. They really should be telling me what to eat. As you can see by what we did come up with in “Jam Today: Kentucky Curry.” A version of the same recipe will be in the new Jam Today: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered, coming in June 2014 to all the usual bricks and mortar, virtual, and electronic book habitats, but especially to indie bookstores near you.

We’ve got two more guest editor issues coming up, Spring 2014 will be hosted by Kate Tallman and Mark Tallman, one a librarian and the other a political science professor, who recently were flooded out of their canyon home in the great Boulder flood of 2013. So it’s probably not a suprise that the theme they’ve chosen is “Disasters: Natural and Un.” We’ve already had quite a few great contributions on that theme, and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Then, the Fall 2014 issue will be guest editored by the ineffable, inestimable, incredible Pablo Kjolseth, who runs the International Film Series at CU Boulder practically single handedly. How he has time to interact with us, I’ll never know. He’s pondering his theme even as we speak, but last I heard, he was leaning toward one that showcases two of his favorite things: Beer and Movies. He is probably also trying to work Cats in there, but as of press time that’s still undecided.

Welcome back, and, it bears repeating: a safe, sane, creative, joyous 2014 to all reading this, and to all you love, too.

The Mountains and Plains Indie Booksellers Tradeshow was last week, in Denver, and, as in years past, I joined our fantastic western sales rep, Dory Dutton, at her table (she reps everything from Tuttle origami books to Lonely Planet guides…and a lot of other stuff in between, so we were an eclectic bunch), joined by […]

No mere slogan, that. Physical fact, biological fact, even though our cultural default setting has it the opposite: the lie that life is the war of all against all. How did that lie get started? As usual, as a truth that outlived its use. Somewhere back in our collective history it became a better bet […]

I was off to the ALA–the American Library Association’s annual conference–this last weekend, and what a change from the last ALA I attended back in 2010. That last was right when the economy had taken its steep nosedive, and of course the first fundings to be cut were the ones for libraries. Back then, everyone […]