EDITOR’S LETTER
+ special Associate Editor message
Confession: I buy magazines because of the pictures and the layout. Having no formal educational background in graphic design, layout and photography, I had to rely on magazines and observe how they are done. I started feeling bad about my habit when I realized how hard our writers work. They had to research, bulk up their range of adjectives and smoothen vocabulary once in a while and that takes more effort than your average photowalk. However, what I lack in writing is balanced by my desire to read. It goes to an extent where I can’t help but read every shampoo bottle while taking my morning shower. I now fully understand that even those simple descriptive words on my shampoo bottle takes a lot of work to write. This issue was put together to celebrate literature as an art form in many formats. Of course, there is no better person to be on our cover but spoken word artist (not to mention our first internation cover), Shane Koyczan. This by far is the biggest leap we’ve made ever since our concepcion and we couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished. We also have Andrea Gibson and Tyler Knott Gregson in this issue as well as other artists such as an interview with our new Art Director, Gab Bustos. A fresh segment was also created to add more writeups in our magazine which is creatively-named Columns (witty, I know). There are quite a number of articles inside from a wide range of topics like Why You Should Stop Reading John Green and How To Win American Idol. Making a literary issue is quite a big risk for us but we know it’s going to be worth it. We need to see something different once in a while just to keep you interested and to, possibly, change the game. I think that writers are underrated and underpaid (according to many complaints on my Twitter feed) so this issue goes out to them. And before I forget, kudos to our Associate Editor, Carl Millan and our Senior Photographer, Pat Nabong for suggesting this theme.
As a writer I’ve always wanted every one to see things the way I see them, which is one of the reasons why I became a writer. I want to impose my narrative line upon those who have a different one, to make them understand what I see and what I think and what I feel, to change their minds and replace them with my own. As a writer you realize early on that you cannot always do that, but you can always try. And try I did. The reason why I wanted Stache to have a literary issue is for the creative youth to have a greater appreciation for the printed word, and, to a degree, the digital text. In the past few months I have started to doubt that there really is a difference between reading from a physical book and reading from an e-reader--except of course for their physical aspects. If your aim is to appreciate the content, to live the lives you cannot lead, to understand what the author means, does it really matter? To put it succinctly, if your aim is simply to read for the sake of reading, who gives a rat’s ass if you’re reading from a cereal box or a wall or an e-reader? I digress. I am thankful enough that Maine Manalansan, Ellie Centeno, Pat Nabong and I shared the same vision of a literate youth, a creative youth which knows and is familiar with the many facets of art—not just its visual aspect—and did not even question whether or not this venture would be a success, whether or not we could pull it off. We did. And I appreciate their backing me up 110% on this. In the past months we have lost Maurice Sendak, Ray Bradbury, and Nora Ephron, and their deaths could not have been timelier—unfortunately. And although this issue’s conception had happened before they died, the team would like to believe that this is our way of paying them homage for their many great works and contributions to literature. This is also for all the writers who had inspired and continues to inspire many lives. Cheers!
Maine Manalansan, Editor-in-Chief
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/Editor'sLetter
Jared Carl Millan, Associate Editor