Jay Speyerer and I started This Awful Awesome Life at my dining room table in 2017. Our first issue published in March. Although Jay was with us for a short time, he helped determine the purpose of our magazine. We wanted to celebrate life with all its ups and downs and stay true to our literary roots. Originally, we planned to stick to a theme for each issue. It soon became obvious life doesn’t always cooperate – Man Plans and God Laughs. We still plan each issue with a theme, but we’ve learned to incorporate all the eccentricities and plot twists life throws our way.
When I was in high school, I sang with a couple of friends at church. One of the songs we chose was titled “Little Flowers.” The lyrics have always stuck with me. I’ll paraphrase the message of the song. Little flowers don’t worry about storms because they know if it never rained, they would never grow.
I like to think our magazine will always be with our readers through their storms – the big ones and the small ones. We’re here to point out the beauty and diversity of our world and the ways we all can do better. I never imagined we would be tackling a global pandemic or dealing with unimaginable losses.
Christian and I used to brainstorm topics each month and gradually the magazine established its identity. I’ve had a lot of help from guest contributors and a few special friends who have become an integral part of every issue.
I wanted to support talented authors, so we created our Author Page to feature their books and allow our readers to order them via the links provided. We also encourage you to visit your local bookstores either in person or online to look for these titles.
Every month I review a book – sometimes I’ll tackle two books. They may be new releases from local authors, current bestsellers, classics, or hidden gems I’ve uncovered. I also recommend books each month for kids and adults according to events we are featuring in the issue.
Food is such an integral part of our lives. We need it to survive. We incorporate food into our celebrations and our times of grief. For many of us, certain foods and how they are prepared are part of our cultural heritage. Certain recipes have been handed down from generation to generation. Sometimes we break with tradition for health reasons or because we want to establish new traditions to help blend our changing families.
We’ve featured foods from around the world and stressed healthy eating plans over fad diets. Linda Cahill, who is an Advanced Director with Pampered Chef, shares wonderful recipes with us each month from Pampered Chef. In 2020, I launched my series “The Twelve Months of” by starting with twelve pies. In 2021 I featured twelve soups paired with a salad or sandwich and for 2022, I will be tackling the Twelve Months of Vegetables.
We’ve featured Q & A’s with authors, artisans, inventors, designers, and other professionals from around the world.
During the pandemic, I started writing a column about streaming and Christian started his column reviewing albums by Indie artists. He completed six months of columns featuring 24 albums and artists. He taught me how to embed videos in the text of an article and he proved that good music is timeless.
Orlando Bartro has been with us from the beginning. I reviewed his book. Toward Two Words for our first issue and he has contributed articles to almost every issue of This Awful Awesome Life. He helps us stay true to our literary roots.
Lilly Kauffman came on board in 2021. Lilly is a gifted storyteller who entertains us with stories from a life in progress. She reminds us we are all works in progress – happy, sad, funny – shaped by our experiences while remaining flexible enough to learn and grow.
Each month we feature a quiz to keep those neurons firing in our brains. I try to use different formats each month – fill in the blank, multiple choice, true/false, Rebus puzzles, crossword puzzles, word search, the Six degrees of separation… I also try to vary the topics to match the general theme of each issue.
This Awful Awesome Life is read around the world. This year over 7,000 readers visited our website over 11,000 times. We don’t advertise or have advertisers. We are strictly an online publication which means we maintain a limited carbon footprint and every issue is available to read on our website at any time.
New algorithms on FACEBOOK limit the reach we used to have on social media, so we are considering launching a subscription-based version of This Awful Awesome Life on Patreon. It’s something Christian and I talked about and it’s part of the original plans Jay and I had for the magazine. We didn’t want to be limited by advertisers as to whom we featured in the magazine or the topics we covered, but without a revenue stream from advertisers or subscriptions we can’t pay talented writers for their work.
On Patreon, we will be able to bring you live interviews and book launches with some of your favorite local authors reading excerpts from their novels or short stories. We can solicit articles from a more diverse group of writers, and we’ll finally be able to afford technical help.
In 2019 we started planning a major home renovation, but the pandemic in 2020 put it on hold. Work should be starting in a few months to give me the ideal kitchen to film some cooking segments and we’re hoping to include some of Linda Cahill’s cooking videos as well.
I’m excited to move forward and I’m incredibly proud of our five years of This Awful Awesome Life. I don’t know exactly when we will be able to launch our enhanced version of This Awful Awesome Life; we are at the mercy of contractors’ schedules and building supply shortages, but it is time to move forward.