The Exterminating Angel Press went really mobile this year, when the Dear Husband moved work to the University of Colorado, in Boulder, and I began moving what we enigmatically call ‘operations’ back and forth between home base in Oregon, and the other side of the Rockies. ‘Operations’ meaning the Apple Air, the Droid with the Oregon office number, the big screen and keyboard, the files, the rolodex and me. Oh, and the checkbook. Don’t forget the checkbook.
I couldn’t have done this ten years ago. Hell, I couldn’t have done it five years ago–run an independent press like a moving target. Couldn’t have done it without all the people working cheerfully on so many different parts of the project living in so many different time zones.
So to start the new year, I want to thank all those parts of the Press. I mean, I just have to name them all, and look at the list with wonder at how much aid and comfort we’ve been getting from so many people.
First and foremost, Mike Madrid, Creative Director of the Press, and Popular Culture editor of the online magazine. All it took was a casual remark from a mutual friend that he knew ‘a guy who always wanted to write a book about superheroines and how they don’t get the break superheroes do.’ Next thing I know that guy is the indispensable partner in designing all our books. Interpreting what they’re about, and acting as graphic design feedback. And elegant. Always irreproachably elegant. How he does it, I have no idea. (Now he’s illustrating our Fall 2012 release, LILY THE SILENT: THE HISTORY OF ARCADIA PART TWO, and wait till you see those pics…)
Then there’s John Sutherland, in Oakland, who does all our typesetting. So patient and conscientious is he, I heave a sigh of relief every time I turn a job over, knowing it’ll be done perfectly, and before deadline. Plus I know he’ll have a good time doing it (very important that people have a good time with their work, especially me!). Paul Mavrides, who stepped in when we needed him and illustrated our spring cover for Brian Griffith’s A GALAXY OF IMMORTAL WOMEN. And Nate Dorward, in Toronto, whose copyediting eye is indispensable for an editor who also writes her own stuff (thanks, Nate, hope to meet up some day). Not forgetting Ali Week, former intern, now in France teaching English, who when I said, “No more interns! Not unless they make my life easier!” promised faithfully to make my life easier, and truly did. Ali, we miss you. Come back. We’ll actually pay you this time.
Thanks to Bob Irwin, photography editor and irony consultant. Jerry Jacobsen, Press lawyer and fellow gourmand. Teri Lewyn Thomas, world’s more tenacious accountant, as well as the person it is most comforting to sit and have a glass of wine with when things go pear-shaped.
And chief counselor/strategist/publicist Molly Mikolowski of A Literary Light, along with Nick Liberty, whose judgment is always spot on–we couldn’t do without you both, and my only regret is that the teleporter doesn’t work between Oregon/Colorado and Minneapolis at the cocktail hour.
Speaking of Minneapolis at the cocktail hour…. Our truly marvelous distributor is in Minneapolis, which gives me even more reason to yearn for that teleporter. . . Julie and Jim and John and Bill and Jaime and Heather and Tom and Maureen and Heather and Ruth and Rachel and Jennifer and Jane and Lindsay and the various French bulldogs and and and…and then the sales reps (yo, Bob! John! Lise! and Melissa, that book’s coming right up. and Dory, next time we’ll have dinner, and Steve and Steve and Stu and Roy and Terry and Bill and Keith …and the other Bill…and Howard…and Dan and and and…)…oh, gosh, don’t forget Katherine in London…
All this support for one small press. And that doesn’t even count the fellow publishers (hey Claudia! ho Adam! yo Joseph! Bruce! Brian and Robert! and…and…and…and…),…and the independent booksellers (Gerry! Scott! Christie! and…and…and…)…and our printer Malloy! Cathy and Lois and Marge…and our digital specialists! all working on sly innovations, such a blast, Aaron and Lisa and Debbie and Djuna and Juan and Pat and Ann (thanks for lunch, guys, looking forward to the next one, too)…and our audio guys, both at Last Word (thanks, Colby!) and at KBOO in Portland (you all know who you are)…fellow travelers Jenn and Jessica in Seattle…and to Peoples Bank in Ashland, Shannon, what would I do without you and Voice Recognition Banking?
Of course, nothing would be the same without Alex Cox, Beloved Husband, Ace Illustrator, and Second Opinion.
It takes a lot of support to float this one small boat (and shoot, I know I’ve forgotten someone, forgive, forgive…). Not just the writers whose work we publish, though of course that’s the end and most observable result. But to get the ideas out there, you need so many different kinds of people, all pulling in the same direction, all interested in different parts of the same whole. And it’s all of those people who reduce my chance of stress related illness by about 80%, and so I just have to say as loud and publicly as I can how grateful I am to all of you for making the Press possible. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had, and makes every day pretty much a meaningful one, and for all of that, since that is about the best life has to offer, as EAP heads into our fourth year of 2012, there just aren’t enough ways to say thanks.