For what feels like decades, I've been watching the world as we know it continue to noticeably implode, wondering what my part is in this Great Transition. What finally crept up on me was the concept for a whole new collaborative art project, a literary humor magazine. Its title derives from a poem by Stevie Smith (Not Waving, But Drowning) about despair and giving up. In reversing that title, our intention is to nourish, inform and heal, as well as to encourage the entire gamut of emotions—our deepest grief as well as our passion and laughing out loud—bringing us all together as a community which chooses art and evolution rather than the hopeless anger, cynicism and censorship engendered by most mainstream media these bad boy days.

Not Drowning, Waving is an every-other-monthly publication by Are We There Yet? Productions featuring stellar stories, essays, poetry, columns, interviews, reviews, artwork and photography by artists from northern New Mexico and beyond. Each issue will focus on one particular theme. Periodically, we’ll give public readings.

With heroes the likes of Patti Smith, Lynda Barry, Bjork, the Hopi elders, Chekhov, Margaret Atwood, Edward Abbey, Shakespeare, Molly Ivins, the Merry Pranksters, Anne Lamott, Dave Eggers and the Talking Heads, we plan to not only seed the next revolution but spearhead it, summoning the courage and the wisdom to leap from this old used-up paradigm of war, compulsive consumerism, greenhouse gas production, suburban isolation and perpetual adolescence to The Next Level.

Gail Snyder, editor/publisher