from the publisher

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

~ Governor George W. Bush, Jr., 1997

On the Page started with two simple premises: I wanted to create something that I wanted to read, and I wanted it be a comfortable home for writers and artists of all sorts. Like a good dinner party, conversation would touch on topics that offered opportunities to tell different stories in different ways, and everyone should feel at home, even if the conversation has already started or the speaker is unfamiliar.

We are excited over how the magazine has grown the last several months and stunned by the enthusiastic reception of friends and colleagues.

about this issue

Each issue centers on a different theme. The idea of Outsiders and Community came to me as I rode my bicycle past the bisons grazing in Golden Gate Park. I had just moved back to San Francisco after seven years on the East Coast, returning to college and high school friends who had settled in the Bay Area. With the exception of Samantha's look at the bisons, our contributors have interpreted the theme in ways I could never have imagined. This pleases me.

art
Photographer Mimi Chakarova came to the United States from Bulgaria at age 13, unable to speak English but armed with a camera with which she recorded stories of her new home. She displays her talents in The Distance Between Us, a photo essay in which she reveals the ongoing struggle, faith, and hope of people in South African townships. You can catch more of Mimi's work at her one-woman show, which runs from February 15 to March 15, at TD 156 An Installation Space, in San Francisco.

poetry
Our editors have tapped into a treasure of works with a stylistic and subject range that dissolved prejudices I once held about hosting poetry On the Page. This week, in Indecision on Aisle Seven, poet Ruth Daigon captures the distance between a woman's place in the world and her aspirations, while Andrena Zawinski's The Mother with Claws evokes the daily rhythms of Prague that have attracted so many outsiders.

fiction
Months ago, I asked Todd Schindler to write an article about a medieval Jewish messiah; instead he sent me The Magnificent Kornblatt, a darkly humorous tale with religious undertones. This story unfolds online over the next seven days, so stay tuned. Vera Djordjevich's The Jar by the Door is a rich, funny depiction of the life of the suddenly single—just in time for Valentine's Day. Part II of this story will appear in Week 3.

interviews
As a big fan of Open Letters, I enjoyed talking to Paul Tough about Open Letters. As editor of this first-person correspondence magazine, published online daily from June 2000 to early January of this year, Paul discusses how he developed a community of readers and writers outside the mainstream of magazines, and muses on the relationship between good music, good writing, and bowling.

nonfiction
William Nations' essay, Saving My Grandparents, is a beautiful and unpredictable portrait of outsiders and community in a small town in Arkansas. In Oh, Give Me a Home, Samantha Schoech reports on the unlikely creatures who have found a home in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

later in this issue
In the coming weeks of Outsiders and Community, we'll have writings about hedgehogs, fake lesbians, finding the right bar, all night classical bowling, new religions, life in Missoula, Einstein in Singapore, sea nymphs, smoking and crying in public, Tuna Helper, Woody Guthrie, and war widows.

In addition, look for daily quotes, suggestions from our staff, film and book reviews, and other ephemera. And, we hope, feedback and letters from you.

thank yous

San Francisco has seen the funeral of many a start-up in the past six months, but On the Page has received a warm welcome here. The good folks at Lux Design not only designed our mark, but helped us to define ourselves as a magazine. And this issue could not have been released without the generous support of our friends and colleagues who attended and sponsored our pre-launch party.

On the Page functions through a combination of collective decision-making, creative anarchy, and individual responsibilities. Among the staff, Vera Djordjevich not only writes and edits, but also creates the simple, authentic look that is On the Page. Michele Rabin seeks out amazing talent and demonstrates judgment in selecting work and themes; she also frequently provided a home to our then-couch-surfing, apartment-hunting publisher. We haven't yet tapped into Carolyn Foley's knowledge of the Concord country music scene, but her skills as a prose editor have proved invaluable.

Poet and staff photographer Zoë Francesca works with our poets and developed the concept of poet's notes to capture the intimacy of an author sharing thoughts with the audience at a poetry reading. Samantha Schoech has a wonderful sense of what works and what doesn't as a writer and editor; she has come up with many of our themes and been active in soliciting emerging and established talents. Pete Mulvihill brings his great ideas and enthusiasm to On the Page and, in the coming weeks, will share his thoughts on Woody Guthrie.

We also welcome ideas, suggestions, and feedback from you, the reader.

all the best,

nada