Dear Friends of Geez magazine,

It’s Melanie here, taking a crack at writing the second monthly newsletter, your
regular low-tech update on what’s up at Geez.

Melanie Dennis Unrau, Editor and co-Publisher, Geez magazine

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TABLE OF CONTENTS – March 2013

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I. INSIDER NEWS

A. PerSisters issue launch party Friday, March 15
B. The PerSisters Issue, “Women’s Magazines” and Feminine Writing
C. Redoing Schooling Issue Coming Soon
D. Happenings at Geez Headquarters
E. Geez on Doug Pagitt Radio

II. SUBSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN UPDATE

III. WHERE GEEZ LIVES

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I. INSIDER NEWS

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A. WE’RE HAVING A PARTY!

It’s a launch party for Geez 29, the PerSisters issue, on Friday, March 15 at Aiden’s house, 264 Home Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba. See the announcement here.

B. THE PERSISTERS ISSUE

Our spring PerSisters issue is headed to your mailbox in the next couple of weeks. We’re thrilled about how the all-women* (*for an inclusive definition of women) issue turned out. Guest designer Melody Morrissette collaborated with some Winnipeg artist friends to put together a fashion photo shoot and a terrific parody of a “women’s magazine” cover. The lovely woman on the cover is Shawna Dempsey, feminist and lesbian performance artist. See her work here.

Inside, there’s a feminist choose your own adventure, tips for a post-Christian sexual ethic, a five-finger test for progressive picture Bibles and a glowing review of child-free living. You’ll find some controversy in this issue – over reproductive rights, over who gets to call out whom and over what one of our regular contributors calls Geez’s masculinist style.

Are we masculinist? It’s something we’ve been thinking about a lot since Tricia Gates Brown responded to our call for pitches with a critique of our claims that we get “more pitches, and slicker pitches, from dudes.” Are our standards off? Do we favour a particular kind of writing that is typical of men? Is there even a place for talking about masculine versus feminine writing any more? I usually think no, but maybe I have something to learn about this.

Men, if you wonder if this issue is even for you, the answer is yes. It’s disorienting for some men to read a magazine written entirely by women (or to attend a conference where all of the speakers are women), but women enter male-dominated zones like this all the time, and it’s considered normal. Write us a letter and tell us what you think of being on the other side: editor [at] geezmagazine [dot] org.

C. REDOING SCHOOLING ISSUE COMING SOON

Next up is our summer issue on the theme of unschooling. In corporate-dominated capitalist culture, education trains young people to be compliant consumers and docile workers. Plus, it further engrains hierarchies of race, class and ability. Is this always the case? What can we do to resist? In this issue, we explore unschooling as a practice of freedom for all of us, not only children.

D. HAPPENINGS AT GEEZ HEADQUARTERS

We have a new addition to the Geez team: intern Tim Runtz joins us to coordinate a sermon contest for our Winter 2013 issue. Watch the website and next month’s newsletter for more information on the contest, and go ahead and get started writing a sermon you’d never hear in church. (Oops. There’s an error in the contest announcement in the new issue: deadline is September 1, not March 31.)

A few weeks ago a crew of volunteer cleaners came and helped tidy up Geez office. It’s embarrassing for us to ask for this kind of menial help, but the office was looking pretty dingy. Board member Brad, his housemate Bryon and our web editor Krystofer reorganized, swept, dusted, cleaned and mopped until it felt cleaner and roomier in here than it has in ages! I appreciated the all-men cleanup force and their gracious dealings with our mess.

The culture at Geez is fun, sometimes even silly. It can also be a bit stressful at deadline time. We’ve pulled out the old bulletin board where Will and Aiden used to collect pictures, quotes and other memorabilia from the Geez office so we can remember all the best jokes and the most brutal time crunches (like recently, when PerSisters guest editor Miriam Meinders yelled, “I don’t care about your f*ing evangelical feelings!”).

I decorate with artwork from my kids. One of our regular writers sent me a handmade Christmas card that’s still up on my wall. In this age of digital friendships and snappy soundbites, we relish the surface mail we receive from subscribers. Anything you send us, especially if it’s thoughtful or made by you, will warm our hearts and, as my 6-year-old says, “fill our buckets.”

E. GEEZ ON DOUG PAGITT RADIO

At the end of February I did a fun interview with Doug and Victoria of the Doug Pagitt Radio show. You’ll find links to the interview here.

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II. SUBSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN UPDATE

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In the December newsletter, Aiden told you about the Geez 500 campaign to increase our subscription base by 500 in 2013. You can go to our website, geezmagazine.org to see how far along our little cyclists have gotten on the “drive.”

If you have friends or family members who would love a social justice magazine with a cheeky twist, or a Christian magazine with a radical edge, now is the time to send them a gift subscription or recommend Geez. Subscriptions are our main source of income – they help us keep the lights on, pay our workers and stay ad-free and independent.

Reader Joel Heng Hartse recently wrote a review of Geez and another magazine, First Things. He recommends Geez even for those who don’t agree with everything in its pages:

“If you’re a religious person who is just not OK with business as usual – unfettered free markets, amoral materialism, low-stakes, sentimental spirituality, a vague sense that it’s nice to be alive for a while even though ultimately all that matters is that some things dominate other things and have offspring – do what the Man doesn’t want you to do: turn off your internets, walk to the store, buy a couple of magazines and allow their ideas to smash into each other in your head until the best bits get stuck there.”

We love our newsstand supporters, and we’d love even more for you to become subscribers. You can subscribe or buy a gift subscription here. Or make a one-time donation here. Monthly donors of $8 or more per month receive an ongoing subscription and our endless thanks. Sign up here.

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III. WHERE GEEZ LIVES

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Geez makes its home in Knox United Church, an enormous downtown building that faces Winnipeg’s once-notorious Central Park. The park’s been redesigned in recent years. It has a splash park and soccer field for summer play, a skating rink and toboggan slide for winder, also a playground with super-tall slides and a permanent art exhibit of changeable lights. In summer, the Geez workers often sit outside and watch a soccer game while we eat our lunches.

Central Park is a much cheerier place than it used to be, but the neighbourhood remains one of Winnipeg’s poorest and most densely populated, and it’s still not a place many people feel comfortable at night. Knox United Church houses a day care, a food bank, a health and nutrition program for mothers and children and a variety of other programs and services for the families who live in the area, mostly newcomers.

It’s a bustling, sometimes quirky place to be, a great home for Geez and a humbling place for me to travel to each day from my gentrified downtown neighbourhood. Our office adjoins a gym where we often hear the shrieks and laughter of children, and a meeting room where health workers discuss education programs on lactation, birth control and nutrition. Sometimes these sounds are distracting, even frustrating, both mostly they remind us that learning and change happen through action and engagement in community, not just sitting on our asses thinking and making our beloved magazine.

If you’re in town or in the neighbourhood, we welcome visitors. Give us a call to let us know you’re coming: 204-772-9610.

Well, that’s it for now. Take care!

Melanie

Editor and Co-publisher, Geez Magazine
400 Edmonton Street
Winnipeg MB R3B 2M2
CANADA
e: melanie [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
p: 204.942.1058
w: www.geezmagazine.org