e.g. journal, Issue 1

Picture: e.g. Journal banner

Edited by Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz of Exploding Galaxies Press, e.g. journal features fresh, unseen pieces of writing and artwork—cut scenes, false starts, experiments, and digressions—no less elegant, nor less refreshing, for being so curious.

Issue 1 of e.g. journal opens onto the teeming panorama of the barangay of Yñiga, much as Wilfrido Nolledo’s But For the Lovers (Exploding Galaxies, 2023) centers on the thick description of the boardinghouse of Ojos Verdes. But pruning back such sprawling life to allow for a clear narrative to emerge is part of the process of writing: enabling others to see this world-newly-shaped outside of your own cacophony, outside of your own imagination. 

What we have here is the gift of Glenn Diaz’s false start to his novel—an early, alternate opening to Yñiga that he ultimately abandoned. In this issue, it both stands on its own and looks onto what it paved to take its place. 

Lesley-Anne Cao’s artistic process of creating studies helps to highlight such starting and restarting and pruning, and draws an especially marked contrast when placed alongside her finished work—books treated as objects, stacks set already in stone.