A Letter from the Geez Board

by Geez Board | Published 23rd February 2024

Photo by Del Barrett.

Dear Geez Community,

We live in a changing ecosystem – maple trees are moving north, pollinator behaviour is out of sync with new seasonal shifts, and print media is drying to a trickle.

Geez has been stubbornly committed to print as an act of resistance, grounded in the beauty and texture of an artifact you can hold. All along, Geez has attempted to dream creatively and prophetically in response to financial squeezes and capitalist-produced scarcity. But the changes required by the current climate have proven unsustainable for our dedicated team.

Over the years, Geez has increasingly relied on donations and less on subscriptions. Some years yielded robust fundraising, and less in other years. Through that time, Geez could not convert the fundraising into the subscription base needed to sustain a steady income. Print media is also a lot of work. The labour wasn’t sustainable when just four people held it; the revenue base didn’t support the larger team Geez attempted to grow.

After much discernment, grief, and gratitude, those shouldering Geez have agreed that the kindest and most tender move is to lay the project down for now. The summer issue, Geez 73, will be this team’s last. This team is made up of Madeline Bohl, Em Jacoby, Claire Peace, Drew Stever, Tuhina Verma Rasche, and Lucia Wylie-Eggert. Please stay tuned for details about subscription refunds – you don’t need to do anything at this time.

We don’t know what might happen next. Will Geez be good compost? An ancestor? A seed? Alive in the breaking of the bread? We’re left with the tension of the old stories: to remain a community willing to “practise resurrection” even as we welcome and embrace sister death.

We honour and celebrate this experiment for what it has inspired, provoked, and sown. We honour you, our community, for holding and sustaining Geez this far. Please reach out to board@geezmagazine.org with your questions or responses.

We close with words from former Geez editor Kateri Boucher, originally published in Prayers for the End of the World. Kateri’s words have accompanied us through many tough meetings together:


The Hum

When I listen to the snowy woods
I hear a quiet hum

It comes from all around me
It beats a distant drum

This song has long been playing
Past page and word and thought

Some thing, indeed is ending
The hum, I think, is not


Yours in the hum,
The Geez Board

Steve Borla
Dean Dettloff
Kate Foran
Chun He
Benjamin Hertwig
Chris LaRue
Nichola Torbett
Iris Vazquez
Kendall Waterman