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| Lucia Wylie-Eggert, Lydia Wylie-Kellerman and Kateri Boucher of Geez. |
In another post, I write about Geez magazine leaving Winnipeg for Detroit, where
it will find a home with a new team led by Lydia Wylie-Kellerman. Below find a
Q & A with Lydia, including her vision for the new magazine.
Why do you and your friends want to take over Geez?
Lydia: I love Geez. I’ve been
writing regularly for Geez since I
first began to feel my own desire to be a writer. It has been a home for me. I
never would have imagined in a million years that I would one day be stepping
into this position.
For the last five years, I’ve been the co-curator of radicaldiscipleship.net which posts daily
reflections from people around North America who are taking risks for justice,
experimenting with creative acts of community and nonviolence, who are breaking
open biblical study for liberation, who are planting gardens and raising kids.
It has been a delight. I have come to realize how much I believe
in the power of stories and their intergenerational, transformative power.
I
find myself so grateful for the work that is happening all over the world and
it is a gift to summon the stories as a way of honoring the work and inspiring
the rest of us.
I want to keep summoning stories. I want to create beauty. I want
folks to feel hope in these truly scary times.
I want to gift the world with
words powerful enough for us to dismantle “this filthy rotten system,” as
Dorothy Day stated, and arise to build something new and wonderful.
What are some new things you want to try?
Lydia: My hope in these days is to maintain the current quality of Geez. I want readers to find the
magazine in their mailbox and see that it is the same magazine just with some
different folks behind the scenes.
That being said, I won’t deny I lie awake at night filled with
ideas and dreams for themes or stories or new columns.
I would love to start a
regular column that is called something like “The Elders Front Porch” where
movement elders write pieces on how they see the world in these days and offer
the nourishment and challenge we all need to move forward. These would be small
and subtle changes.
You indicate a commitment to print, but also say you understand
"in this generation we cannot hope to save print magazines." Are you
open to going digital? Or would you let it close if it proves unsustainable in
that format?
Lydia: It is hard to answer that question with any certainty. I have
heard Aiden talk about Geez as an
offline oasis. Through my work with radicaldiscipleship.net, I have
spent a lot of time cultivating stories in an online format.
It has its value.
But I am not sure I want to give my life helping people be more addicted to
screens.
I want to help create something that can be read around the
kitchen table, that can be read as you lean against a tree, something that can
be held in your hands, and treasured over time.
So my instinct is to say that
we are committed to print and will go down fighting for it, but I leave a small
amount of wiggle room for the spirit to take us a different way.
In Canada, we have a general fear of being overwhelmed by the
U.S. What can you say to Canadians to assuage their fears that this won't turn
into another America-first magazine?
Lydia: I hear this fear in readers these days and in all honesty, I carry
that fear with every step of this transition.
The U.S. empire is a powerful and
ugly thing. I’ve spent my life discerning in community how to live so that my
body and spirit aren’t swallowed whole by the empire.
I believe that Geez’s
roots in Canada is a tremendous gift to the work and identity of the magazine.
I cannot pretend that things won’t change. The context from where the magazine
goes out matters.
What I can promise is that I am mindful and paying attention to
this concern. I will also make sure that the context from which we do the work
will be amidst people who are resisting the U.S. empire with their lives.
And in the concrete, we commit to having Canadians on the board,
keeping Aiden in the editorial circle, and making sure that a certain
percentage of the contributions come from Canadian authors and artists.
Finally, say a bit about who you are and the group behind this
new ownership.
Lydia: I am a writer, editor, organizer, and mother. My partner Erinn,
and I are raising two boys (5 and 3) on the street where I grew up. My dad
lives five houses away, my sister across the street, and a neighborhood filled
beloveds.
We spend time planting urban gardens, tending chickens and bees,
and throwing block parties. In our neighborhood in southwest Detroit, loving
our neighbors also means organizing resistance to the water shut offs that are
happening on a massive scale in Detroit, as well as resisting the immigration
system that regularly tears families apart on our block.
I am the co-editor of radicaldiscipleship.net. I am
also currently working with the Louisville Institute to put together an
anthology on parenting with commitments to peace and justice.
My team is pretty amazing. These are three women who I have spent
endless hours with gardening, canning, praying, and protesting. I’ve been at
the birth of their children and walked with them through hard moments of
transition. They are three women who I trust their analysis and hopes for the
world.
On top of all of that, Em Jacoby understands a budget better than
anyone I know. Lucia Wylie-Eggert create beauty through design. Kateri Boucher
loves to talk with people and can effortlessly turn you into a subscriber.
I couldn’t do this without them. I am so grateful.
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