prairie dog is dead

The first pieces I wrote for prairie dog magazine—Regina’s alternative newspaper that announced this week it’s closing down after 32 years—were composed on a typewriter. Yes, it was a different time, but mostly I was just embracing a pretentious affectation (so it wasn’t such a different time, ha!)

The summer of 1997, I was 20. I merely walked into the below-ground floor office on Hamilton Street, across from Central Park and announced that I was a writer, basically challenging everyone in the room to prove I wasn’t. So Mitch Diamantopoulos pointed to a box of promo CDs and said why not start there. A few weeks later (prairie dog was monthly then, later biweekly), I was a published writer. It made all the difference. My name (frequently misspelled) in print. The byline opened the world to me.

During the first part of this century, prairie dog expanded. They launched a sister paper in Saskatoon, Planet S (also shutting down this fall). They had a great blog where they let me do a column that was one of the most fun things I ever did. They published, in serial form, Dakota McFadzean’s terrific comic strip Murray Geister: Paranomal Investigator. They occupied above an ground office suite on Scarth Street, in what used to be Rua’s Cafe 97, where, in 1997, I wrote several CD reviews that were published in prairie dog.

During the more recent part of this century, well, I don’t know the specifics, but everything started to be awful and prairie dog was not immune to that. prairie dog outlasted many contemporaries in bigger, more happening cities. They have a lot to be proud of.

Eternal gratitude and friendship to longtime editor Stephen Whitworth. He mystifyingly endured some real juvenile bullshit from me when he came on board. I’m sure glad he did. He pushed me to try new things, like the time I spent a season as a mall Santa around Regina and believed in me. Thank you, Stephen, and best wishes in whatever comes next.