The Hot Air Quarterly - Autumn Issue No. 12
This Saturday, in conjunction with Hawkman Studio’s Art Hop (for a map of this month’s Art Hop, visit anewscafe.com), Jim and I will be distributing copies of the fall issue of The Hot Air Quarterly. We won’t be having a reading this time (the next reading is scheduled for February), but we will be leaving copies at the following locations: Pacific West Graphics, Shasta County Arts Council, Infinite Designs, the Redding Library, and Sue’s Java Cafe. Update: There will also be copies at Kimberly Nicole’s Boutique, and Vintage Wine Bar & Restaurant.
This month’s cover features the delectable work of the lovely Maggie Andersen, who works out of her Art Farm studio in Palo Cedro. She’s probably best known for her watercolor series on shoes; and she occasionally hosts a wonderful art fair at her digs.
As we are always looking for ways to increase the quality of our publication, Hot Air continues to evolve. With previous issues, I printed the covers on my home printer on photo paper, while we had the guts photocopied. Then we hand-assembled, stapled, and scored each copy. Last issue, the summer issue, we opted for a saddle-stitched binding which needed to be done at a commercial printer. The printer did an excellent job, and we and our readers much preferred the binding, but staff here at HAQ ended up not being satisfied with the quality of paper that we could afford for a commercially produced cover.
So, for this issue, we’re trying yet another approach: We had the estimable Pacific West Graphics print and bind the issue, while I printed the cover art on high quality photo paper. Jim and I have hand-tipped the art onto the cover. It meant more work for us, but this process will continue to give the magazine a handmade feel, which I confess to liking very much. I think it’s nice to hold anything in your hands that was made individually … expressly for you, in a sense. This issue has turned out beautifully; we hope you like it as much as we do!
As we continue to evolve, we’re also broadening the range of material that we publish. In this issue, we’ve selected more serious stories and poems than we’ve published in times past, but we are also maintaining our commitment to the power of well-crafted playful work.
Featured in this issue is the work of an extremely gifted writer whom I met at the Aspen Writers’ Conference years ago. Juliet was the Lifestyles Editor for the Boulder Daily Camera at the time, and wrote many of their book reviews. Juliet, Caryn McVoy (an early contributor to The Hot Air Quarterly; you can check out her story, “He’s Back” in our second issue; pdf copies available upon request from keswickhouse@earthlink.net.) and I all met in a workshop taught by Alison Lurie. We became inseparable the first day and have remained good friends ever since, meeting up again at the same writers’ conference two years later.
During this time, Juliet was diagnosed with breast cancer. A writer to her core, she documented her experience in a poignant and thoughtful memoir, The Breast Cancer Journal: A Century of Petals, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and won the Colorado Book Award. Thankfully, she recovered fully and has now been in remission for quite some time. She continues to write book reviews, for The Washington Post among other venues, and writes compelling, lyrical, melancholy short fiction, such as the story “Elisa” we’re publishing in this issue.
Two other writers we’re thrilled to be featuring this issue are the talented, madcap Greg Pate and Phil Fountain. Fans of the former Flying Penguin will be delighted to know that Dr. Adam Baum makes an appearance in this issue, while Phil’s aficionados have a real treat in store as Philbert Firefly (Fountain) and Irwin Wappcapp (Pate) duke it out on our pages. (Do not read either of these entries while eating or drinking, unless you want to risk having some alimentary substance exit through or become lodged in your nose.) If we’re lucky, Phil will soon be following in Al Franken’s footsteps by becoming our newest city council member after the next election. A former writer and cartoonist for The Record Searchlight, his wonderful work can now be found regularly on anewscafe.com.
For this issue, kind donors have helped us to increase our print run so there will be more copies to distribute. It’s exciting to see The Hot Air Quarterly continue to grow at a time that print media is struggling around the country. Thanks so much to all of our contributors and supporters for helping us to make our contribution to the literary arts. We hope you enjoy our efforts!
Above: “Conversation,” by Maggie Andersen, the cover art for the fall issue of HAQ.
Monday, October 5, 2009