Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Todblog

EAP Editor/Publisher Natters on About This and That.

The World We Want.

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Our world is changing. I don’t think there is any doubt anywhere about that. So the obvious question is: what do we want it to change to? The Arcadia Project on Facebook has some interesting conversations going about that very question, and two of the articles in this issue come directly from there. Tamra Spivey and Ronnie Pontiac contribute The Utopia File, which includes a perfectly stellar warning that there is no Utopia without Dystopia—something good to remember. Probably why the one rule on the Project page is that posts need to suggest alternatives, constructive possibilities for transformation of present worn out cultural stories. And that’s it.

Rustin Wright got going one day on The Arcadia Project imagining his ideal public transit service (which he called, blush, ‘Daviesville’), and gave gracious permission for us to put it up here: A Fantasy of a Sane Transit System, Parts I to V. More than worth a look for a map of the kind of community thinking that can go into making one’s immediate locale a nicer, more comfortable place to live. It always surprises me when someone says something like, “But happiness isn’t the goal of humanity.” No? Then what is? And WHO SAYS?

Speaking of happiness, you have to read the piece that contributed hugely to mine this issue: Marie Davis and Margaret Hultz’s Feet. Also poetry editor Marissa Bell Toffoli’s poignant words about the joy and sorrow mingled in living in this, and any other, world, Too Much To Ask. And Marvin Bruce surprised me. I thought his Prom Night was going to be a trashing of small town America…but it turned out otherwise. It ended by being about what happens when you don’t believe another world is possible.

Come on over to the The Arcadia Project and join in. We need your help imagining…well, imagining another world. One where happiness for all is the evolving goal. And transformation is a way of life.

Welcome back.

 

 

So THAT’S the Question.

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I think we’re all agreed that another world isn’t just possible, it’s imperative. So what is that other world to be? That’s the main question, damn it. And there are flickers of light all over our world as people ask that question and try to answer it in their own, creative way. That’s what we’re […]

What’s the Question, Damn it.

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When “EAP: The Magazine” first started up, I had this kind of selfish idea. The idea was the space would attract like minds…the kind of minds that worked a bit, well, differently. My idea was that real creativity happens on the margins, where people try out different ways of seeing and being, and it was […]

I Wonder.

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I wonder where all this is heading. When I started on the EAP journey, what I really wanted was to explore what effect story has on our world…what place stories inhabit in it, what they say about it, whether changing stories changes how we see it. So I noticed a lot of possibilities were going, […]

Wonder Stories.

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I love what Maria Tatar, the Harvard professor of folklore and fairy tales, says about the latter: that they’re really misnamed. They should by right be called “Wonder Tales.” Because what they do is express our wonder at our inner landscape as humans, rather than our outer. Wonder Tales bring out to view what’s inside […]

Spring and the Devil.

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VERY appropriately, this issue, ‘The Devil You Know’, was pelted with poetry. Inundated. A tsunami of images came over the virtual transom, and it’s a tribute to our poetry editor Marissa Bell Toffoli (see her poem this month, ‘Garden of Unease’) that she caught them gracefully in her poetic catchers mitt while in the midst […]

Firsts.

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This issue of EAP: The Magazine features a memorial picture of Laika, the first dog sent into space, and we feel in solidarity with that dog, although a good deal luckier. We’re into celebrating Firsts, and fortunately for us, our reality is a bit more controllable than Laika’s was for him—i.e. no being shot into […]

We Love Enthusiasm…& If They Tell You People Don’t Read, They Lie, They Lie.

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Pablo Kjolseth, this issue’s BEER & MOVIES guest editor, and John Adams, the talent behind the photo that illustrates it (and he did that one with one hand tied behind his back, probably while also cooking dinner and drinking a beer), are two of the most passionate people I know—passionate about beer and movies, especially. […]

Stories, Delivered.

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One of the great pleasures–and also one of the great pains–of being the editorial director of Exterminating Angel Press is getting to read the amazing work coming out of like minds everywhere…the pleasure is obvious, the pain comes from not being able to publish everything we love. The online magazine, of course, is great for […]

Three Cheers for Guest Editors.

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I’m quite enthusiastic about this guest editorship thing we have going on EAP: The Magazine. For those of you who’ve come in late, when we did our Indiegogo funding push, one of the surprisingly popular perks was said editorship. This issue is our second, with one more to go, and both so far have been […]