The End, Sort of

I confess to surreal feelings, sitting on my couch, writing this, the final entry on Cheek Teeth blog. It’s about endings. Sort of.

This is the surreal part: It’s the same couch I was sitting on three years ago, and the same laptop on which I typed then as now, writing up what would be the first announcements for TRACHODON Magazine. I still remember affixing the logo to our letterhead. And I still have the original plate, made out of construction paper and glue stick. A little dinosaur running for its life. I wondered at the time: From what? What’s chasing it?

In December 2009, I didn’t know anything about Print On Demand, other than that was how self-publishers kept from going broke. I didn’t know that a decent ebook could be created with reasonable knowledge of Microsoft Word and an unreasonable amount of patience. Cheek Teeth was supposed to be the name of a newsletter. I’d only recently joined Facebook, was still avoiding Twitter, and thought that most magazine logos were probably designed with construction paper and glue stick. (No glitter, though. I hate glitter.)

It was a lot of fun, making that logo.

A good afternoon’s work. It’s a good metaphor, too, for the particular kind of joy I experienced working with Katey and our roster of fine contributors. I always felt, as I edited, designed, and prepared an issue for publication, that regular classes had been cancelled, and by the good grace of the universe I got to spend all day working on what I wanted. Upon publication of all four issues of TRACHODON Magazine, and again with BITE: An Anthology of Flash Fiction, I felt like a child showing his art projects to his mother. Looky what I made! Only I was unveiling the books to you, our readership, our contributors, our community.

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This is the part about endings.

In the last weeks of 2012—same couch, same computer—I’m faced with a single hard truth, as described by statements of accounts and sales figures: We can no longer afford to publish twice yearly paperback editions of TRACHODON Magazine. It’s time to catch my breath, reevaluate the project, and reassess why I chose to edit and publish my own mag in the first place, particularly in the medium of paper and ink.

What I wrote earlier about our dinosaur logo being on the run: It was running from the inevitable. From what happens to print journals that rely on sales to survive. I knew, even then, this day would come. 

Though running fast, I’ve learned plenty. Print On Demand can help keep micro-presses from going broke, too. If not for POD technology, we wouldn’t have printed two issues, never mind four plus a very cool anthology. Simple ebooks really do require unreasonable amounts of patience to create. I was reminded that I like construction paper. Glue stick, not so much. And I still have an abiding hatred for glitter, both literal and figurative.

As Katey alluded to last week, Cheek Teeth blog has ceased publication as of today, though the archive will remain online for the foreseeable future. From its beginnings two years ago, the success of Cheek Teeth has been down to Katey’s remarkable vision for the blog, and to her tireless, too-often thankless work. Our association, Katey’s and mine, goes back more than six years, to my last days of graduate school, and she remains the best editor I know, and one of the finest writers I can count among my friends. If it weren’t for her, I’d have to publish this on construction paper. I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have worked with her.

I must report: Trachodon Publishing ends 2012 breaking even. And, ladies and gentleman, it was a photo finish.

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Finally, the "sort of." I have a year to reflect and evaluate TRACHODON’s future. In the meantime, we’ll continue to sell and promote BITE: An Anthology of Flash Fiction. Back issues of the magazine will continue to be available through our website and bookstores, real and virtual. Trachodon.org, our Facebook page, and Twitter stream will still be updated regularly with news, musings, information. 

Later this year, Katey’s book Flashes of War will be published, and if America realizes what it has, she won’t have time to return my emails. To her and her book, all the best. 

Here’s the rub: I take comfort—and am excited by—the phrase sort of. Because it means a year to dream. Will TRACHODON-point-two be published online? Via ebook retailers as monthly installments? As PDF stories through email subscription? As a yearly print anthology funded with Kickstarter campaigns? (Three years ago I’d never heard of Kickstarter, either.) Or will it be revived through some means, which somewhere, someone is dreaming up right now?

Or will BITE be our swan song? I’m uncertain. And if I’m really honest, I don’t mind this kind of uncertainty. In the future I’ll officially refer to this year as “a hiatus.” But that doesn’t do it justice. I’m busy dreaming.

John Carr Walker grew up on a raisin farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley and now lives in Saint Helens, Oregon, where there’s not a vineyard for miles. His writing has appeared in StringTown, Slow Trains, Prick of the Spindle, Prime Number, Eclectica, and elsewhere. He's the editor and founder of the literary magazine TRACHODON. His short story collection Repairable Men is forthcoming from Sunnyoutside.