BY ANGELA JOSSY

In this first issue I wanted to catch you up on things that happened while the newspaper was dormant. When I bought it, I vowed to give the archives to the Pacific Northwest Room so that our creative community will be remembered as a part of our local history. Then I realized that the archive readers of the future would see a gap in time which was a crucial one in our history. Specifically the years when a pandemic locked us inside and changed our world. We need to account for that time and what it did to us as a community. We are different now and they need to understand why.

It’s pretty mind-blowing that I own a newspaper now. I want you to know that I do take it seriously but I also intend to have the most fun I’ve ever had while operating it. Apparently there are not a lot of women-owned newspapers. I wasn’t thinking about that when I got the idea to buy it. To me it just felt like coming home. It felt like our creative communities were fractured with nothing to hold them together. I felt like I wasn’t working in my zone of genius and that I had been playing small for too long. Tacoma needed Weekly Volcano and so did I.

I want you to think of Weekly Volcano as a media and production company that happens to have a killer newspaper. I have plans to expand the business and we are building a much better website that we hope to unveil by the end of the year. I don’t want to say too much about the future, but if you know me at all, you know I do epic shi*t with incredibly talented people so you know its going to be good.

Can one little alt-weekly (that only prints monthly) make a difference in our cities future? I don’t know. Let’s find out. All I know is right now our creative community is operating blindfolded and in the dark. They need to see where they are going and we need to see it too so we can support them. I see all of our creatives as entreprenuers so in that way, my goal to support local businesses includes them as as well. You can support this by making sure our advertisers know how much you appreciate them making all of this possible. Please check out the ads! Don’t just skim over them. Behind each one of these ads is someone’s dream come true that needs our support. You can also support us by subscribing to the weekly email newsletter, reading it every week, and recommending it to friends. You can pitch us story ideas. You can volunteer. You can buy our merch. You can donate money. You can find all our social media channels and connect there. You can share our content and spread the word. This publication is free and should remain free as long as possible. Hopefully forever. This is your newspaper. Help us make it into something you love and take great pride in. If you do that, we have no choice but to succeed in keeping the lights on for our creatives and for Weekly Volcano. Off we go!