It's been 35 years since Steve Osborne and Mary Schendlinger, partners in life and in literature, launched Geist onto the stormy seas of the Canadian magazine world. I doubt they gave much thought to the distant future -- just paying the printer for the next issue was challenge enough -- but given the precarity of literary publishing in this country they could hardly have expected that their Vancouver-based magazine would still be going strong three and a half decades later.
However improbable, such is the case and an enthusiastic crowd of Geist supporters was on hand last week to listen to Steve (now retired) reminisce about the olden days, to hear members of the next-gen read from the current issue, and to snag a piece of the celebratory cake.
For several years I was a member of the Geist editorial board and even wrote a books column for the mag so I have skin in the game. Nonetheless I have to say that the quality of writing published in Geist four times a year for 35 years makes its survival a major cultural achievement worth celebrating from coast to coast to coast.