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Changes at Cascadia Daily and Cascadia Magazine
But it’s an uphill battle trying to create an independent publication and finding sustainable funding to keep it going. Though many of you have come through as donors, and we’ve brought in a few grants, it’s difficult to secure the necessary money to sustain a magazine like this. And frankly, some of us need to make a living and afford to live in Seattle, an increasingly expensive city that seems intent on forcing people who make less than $100,000 a year to live elsewhere. (Okay, that’s not exactly breaking news, but there it is.)
This week, we’ll be making changes and informing about what you’ll find inside this newsletter and at Cascadia Magazine. We aren’t shutting down, but we’ll be significantly scaling back what we offer. This newsletter will likely shift to a weekly digest. We’ll still publish occasional journalism, poetry, essays, and fiction online at Cascadia Magazine, but it will be more infrequent.
What most breaks my heart is our failure to find a way to continue paying the incredibly talented writers we’ve worked with across the region. There are many and you should support them whenever the opportunity arises, whether it’s subscribing to a literary journal, a local newspaper, or buying books by Cascadia poets and writers.
Thanks for joining us on this adventure exploring what’s going on across borders in the vast bioregion known as Cascadia. We’ll be open and transparent about the changes, and offer you opportunities to cancel your recurring donations or subscription to this newsletter if it isn’t what you’re expecting.
A thousand thanks,
Andrew Engelson
Join us for the debut Writing Cascadia Workshops on Nov 17, held in cooperation with Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum. Choose from one of three classes: The Art of the Interview with Paul Nelson, Autobiography and Autofiction with Corinne Manning, and Writing Silence with Washington poet laureate Claudia Castro Luna.
Register online here, class sizes are limited!
Will BC adoption of Indigenous law show results?
Last week, British Columbia made history by being the first province in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), which should bring new involvement and self-determination among First Nations in BC, but Judith Sayers of the Hupacasath First Nation in Port Alberni, BC writes for The Tyee that she’s skeptical that the adoption will bring real change. “I find it hard to understand why it is OK for First Nations to say yes to developments, yet they cannot say no.” Meanwhile CBC finds that a program that involves First Nations in trail building is being cut by the BC government in favor of more spending for displaced timber workers.
Oregon congressional rep to resign & other poltical news
Longtime Congressperson Greg Walden, Oregon’s only Republican member of Congress, announced he’ll retire in 2021, Portland Mercury reports. His district covers the vast expanse of east of the Cascades, and he’s been a regular defender of Trump and his policies. In other political news, Crosscut reports that longtime King County council member in south Seattle, Larry Gossett, is facing a serious challenge by a younger opponent–is it time for a curtain call for the civil rights activist? And in Vancouver, climate activist Greta Thunberg joined protest of thousands asking for immediate action on climate change.
Transit workers in Vancouver may strike
CBC reports that the union representing 5,000 workers for metro Vancouver’s transit system is prepared to go on strike for a better wage deal. And in Oregon, a strike among the Porltland-based Burgerville chain that began last week has ended as management agreed to wage increases, Willamette Week reports.
Sea urchins devastating Cascadia kelp beds
OPB reports that purple sea urchins are devastating kelp beds along the coast of California, and are making moves on similar ecosystems in Oregon and Washington. What’s fascinating is the article never once mentions the decline of sea otters — which are the number one predator of urchins, and I dunno, maybe the solution to the imbalance. But instead the feature talks about–you guessed it–hiring people to kill the urchins. Anyway, you just go ahead and do what you do, humans.
A new museum of Latinx culture in south Seattle
Aguedo Pacheco Flores, writing for Crosscut, profiles the new Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture in Seattle, a place that recognizes an often forgotten population in the Seattle area (the feature notes that the Latinx population in King County has grown 28 percent in this decade).
Walking, running, and rolling at Seattle’s Lit Crawl
Paul Constant at Seattle Review of Book writes a report from last week’s Seattle Lit Crawl, a fabulous evening of readings by local writers, from Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Wei-Wei Lee to a forum by Seattle Poets. Cascadia Daily was there and enjoyed it immensely, whether it was artist and writer Ellen Forney giving advice on crying in public or and amazing trio of local poets–Quenton Baker, Shayla Lawson, and Jane Wong–each sharing their phenomenal work. We indeed have an embarrassment of riches here in Cascadia.