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Cascadia Magazine and Cascadia Daily are non-profit, reader-supported publications. We strive to cover a variety of issues important to the bioregion that stretches from northern California to southeast Alaska and from the Pacific to the continental divide.
We publish a mix of fiction, essays, poetry, arts coverage, environmental reporting, and in-depth news features. Not to mention a few hiking suggestions, because it is the Pacific Northwest after all!
Is there something you think we should be covering more? An issue or artist the needs profiling? Let us know. We welcome feedback and input. Send us a note here.
And if you appreciate these publications, please help us out during our Spring Fund Drive, where we’re trying to raise $10,000 before the end of June. We have some cool premiums for donations at the $200 and $400 level, including a poetry broadside and a full-color map of Cascadia. Check out our donate page for more details.
An interview with BC poet & novelist Ian Williams
Poet and creative writing instructor Ian Williams, who lives in Vancouver and has a debut novel entitled Reproduction, talks with Alison Bate at Cascadia Magazine about black Canadian writing, the challenge of creating unsympathetic characters, and what it’s like as a poet to write a novel. Read the full Q&A online here.
Will Seattle change backyard cottage rules?
The Seattle city council is poised to vote on making it easier to build backyard cottages to deal with a severe housing shortage that’s driving up rents. The South Seattle Emerald interviews Magaret Morales at Sightline Institute about the need for more tiny homes. Meanwhile, the Seattle Times looks at an innovative housing project near the city’s Othello light rail station that will include over 400 units of “missing middle” affordable housing. In related news, The Stranger asks Seattle city council candidates where they stand on increasing housing density. And singer-songwriter Neko Case (who grew up in Tacoma) got in a weird spat with housing activists in Seattle over whether the Ballard neighborhood is over-developed.
Report draws attention murdered Indigenous women
As the global Women Deliver conference–the largest gender equality conference in the world– opened in Vancouver, a report on Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women was released, and the BC government vowed to do more to prevent it and solve cases. The Georgia Straight has more on the cold cases. Meanwhile, Dorothy Woodend at The Tyee looks at the Women Deliver conference through the lens of various struggles by women to fight back against climate change, genital mutilation, and other issues.
What’s up with 5G and Huawei?
NW News Network looks at movements in Eugene, Oregon and other cities across Cascadia questioning the health impacts of new 5G data networks to be installed across the US that would substantially increase speed of access. Some of the skepticism may have been fed by Russian state news networks, and Vox has an explainer about the issues associated with 5G and the Chinese Huawei telecom company. Meanwhile, Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, remains under house arrest in Vancouver on charges of trying to defraud banks about the company’s dealings in Iran.
Battling northern pike to save salmon
OPB reports on the effort to eradicate the invasive northern pike from the Columbia River–the aggressive, toothy fish are out-competing native chinook salmon. Fish and wildlife managers are offering a reward of $10 for every fish caught.
McKenzie Bezos will donate big chunk of divorce settlement
Seattle-based novelist McKenzie Bezos, who recently divorced Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, announced she’ll donate half of her $35 billion settlement to charities and causes, the BBC reports. In this feature, BBC talks with Elliott Bay Book company about why they let her read at an indie bookstore, and with Paul Constant of Seattle Review of Books: “I think the thing that was most remarkable about her first book was how competent it was – she could have been published without the Amazon connection.”
The long career of BC poet Roy Miki
The Ormsby Review at BC BookLook has a detailed, thoughtful review of a new anthology of work by British Columbia poet Roy Miki. The essay follows Miki from his childhood days in the Japanese Canadian internment to his work as an activist, passionate advocate for Japanese Canadian literature, and his experiments with photographic collage.
That’s today’s assortment of news, arts, poetry, and environmental reporting from across the Cascadia bioregion. If you like receiving this email and the articles we publish at Cascadia Magazine, please help us out during our Spring Fund Drive. We can’t do this without YOUR support. Thanks! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: house and backyard cottage courtesy of city of Seattle