Two Editors Comment on their Vision for Publishing their Own and Others’ Work in Cul-de-sac

By Diane George & Doina Sandor

Diane George:

For me, Cul-de-sac (CDS) is about community. It’sabout the process of creating this journal. It’s dragging myself out of bed to get on the computer far too early for my brain and body but feeling lighter as soon as I see all of you. It’s about an outlet for the horror, terror, frustration, rage, devastation, disgust, and grief that I feel daily. I guess it’s selfish because if this community we’re building didn’t make me feel some hope and joy, I probably wouldn’t be part of this. I’m still not sure what I see CDS being out in the world. For me it’s a work of art, not an intellectual magazine. I want its creation and existence to be beautiful and profound. I’m too weary for intellectual competition and display.

Doina Sandor:

It is a community, it is a selfish effort to feel like I have a voice, and it is about our discussions rather than the final product. And it is about all of us: Peter, your clarity of thought and guidance; Diane, your fighting spirit and resilience (like a Greek goddess); Hugo, your vision and leadership; Zuko, your poetry and kindness (among many other things).

For me, the journal came at a time of great anxiety about the world when I really felt at the end of the lane with no way out of a narrow, scarry road. Having just read Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I keep thinking that things are not really as they appear, that there is a world of infinite possibility out there and that—even if magical and seemingly unrealizable reality has a way of playing games with uncertain outcomes—something as simple as a collection of our thoughts, fears, rebellions, may be for some (including for me) an ocean of hope. I’m using “hope” because I can’t think of a better word. It’s not a religious belief in impossible things and blinded submission. It’s not giving up on the idea of agency. It’s not the “hope” that structural change or movement will come from writing and publishing words. It’s “hope” in the sense of a warm fuzzy feeling that humans are not lost creatures, that they will find a way to do what is kind, and good, and caring out of selfishness but also out of selflessness.