Let’s face it. It’s been a rough winter, both for the country and the world. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s as if Mother Nature is having a particularly stern tease with us, setting up each day as if it’s spring rather than an appropriately snowy winter. Wind and sun and rain, and more wind and sun and rain, flooding in the cities and ski slopes despairing.
So we pull back into our personal lives, and there, too, there’s a lot of sorrow in losing loved ones and friends. EAP contributor Marie Davis died after a long illness, a particularly painful loss, though loss is always painful even at best. Marie, along with her partner Margaret (MJ) Hultz, came to EAP almost at the start, way back in 2012. They wrote their pieces for us together, eighteen of them, and in this they were at the forefront, right where EAP was hoping to find writers. It’s become more common, thankfully, for writing to be done in partnership, rather than insisting every work be that of a lone genius, but back then it was rare. The minute I saw their byline I was sold on their writing, even before I read the poignant and expressive pieces. Check out Lima Beans, a lesbian pirate story, one of my favorites.
And both of them were so kind. When I had to do a Kickstarter to keep the hard copy Exterminating Angel Press afloat, I offered to come up with recipes over the phone for whatever any contributors to the fund had in their kitchen. Marie and MJ chose that benefit, generously. Then, hilariously, proceeded to way outdo me in the idea department for what could be done with the overflowing cornucopia that was their cupboards. I put their recipe in the second Jam Today book, “Jam Today Too,”—Kentucky Curry! And the memory of that phone call still gives me a fit of the giggles and a feeling of warmth down to my toes.
I’m hoping to see MJ’s lone byline in my inbox some time soon, sad as it will make me. But isn’t the theme this issue “To Be or Not”? Given the choice, how could anyone choose anything but being, ongoing being, the kind of being that arises from meaning and isn’t stopped by a tiny barrier like physical death?
That’s my firm belief, and I’m sticking with it. As if to prove my point, this issue busts out with some lively signs of meaning. There’s another collaboration in this issue, between a poet and an artist, Rachel Kerwin and Kathy Karlson: The gulls hang over the station. And we’re welcoming three new writers: Nick Armbrister with his Riga Stories, Amelia Arnold with her sad A Library Heart, and Gregg Winkler with my particular favorite this issue, What You Hate. Gregg argues that the perfect is the authoritarian enemy of the good, and as you know, that’s an argument EAP is always willing to hear. And to make.
Life is imperfect. That’s all to the good. So we’ll gird up our collective loins and carry on. Down with authoritarianism. Down with perfectionism. Up with confused, hilarious democracy, still struggling to be born. And up with all of you.
Speaking of that, Sean Murphy, an often times contributor to this magazine when he isn’t doing about a hundred other literary activities, has started an indie press: 1455. One of the first books projected for publication is a women’s anthology with the theme of ‘Silence’, and Sean is seeking out the best of women’s poetry and essays to make up its pages. I pointed out to him how many wonderful poets have arrived at the pages of EAP, and promised I’d let you all know he was looking for you. Send away! I guarantee he’ll be the editor of your dreams. After me, of course.
Welcome back.