From the Editor, by Nikko Snyder

(Editorial, originally published in good girl magazine No. 2, Winter 2002.)

OK, so here she is at long last: good girl #2. If I thought that starting a magazine was hard, I had obviously never imagined publishing one on an ongoing basis. After weeping and begging and threatening tantrums for many months, I've finally pulled together enough writing and cash to put this baby out again. But in light of the changes that my life and the world have undergone since issue #1 came out in April, money and deadlines don't have quite the same meaning anymore.

It's been difficult for me to understand good girl's place in the world when war and fear have started to take up previously free space in my mind. How can young women writing about sex be important when there're bombings and anthrax to think about? My initial response to the events on September 11th was to feel paralysed by listlessness and fear, and to forget the wondrous aspects of my life and the world. Thankfully, my lethargy only lasted for approximately 24 hours before a different feeling set in. I still feel scared and apprehensive, and I still cry spontaneously and cringe and cover my eyes at violence on TV that never used to affect me. But a sense of resolve that's different than the type I've known has started to grow - a resolve that's more intense, more urgent. There is important stuff that I want to do with this life, and it has to do explicitly with love and respect and creativity and liberation: human qualities that never disappear but do get overshadowed by fear and war and oppression.

So I keep reminding myself that that's what good girl is all about - creating this love, respect, creativity and liberation in life and sharing it with others. With other women, men, people from different backgrounds with different ideas. Talking and listening with respect. Opening our minds and keeping them open, and making sure to keep thinking creatively about what is fed to us. Asking questions, listening and generating answers.

After good girl #1 I had the bright idea that making up a theme would be a good way to go about putting together a magazine. So, being an arty type and revelling in my newly rediscovered creative brain (four years of institutionalized education didn't do much for my ability to think creatively about the world), I made the executive decision to choose 'The Creative Process' as the theme for issue #2. But very quickly, it became abundantly clear that the decision was not mine to make. As much as I tried to make the incoming articles on motherhood, sexual health, monogamy and porn into pieces that explored The Creative Process, I eventually had to accept that another theme was actually surfacing unbidden.

Despite my valiant efforts to ignore it, the theme of 'All Things Sexual' had emerged, and there you have it! The minds of young women across Canada are safely in the gutter, and I can truthfully say that I in no way encouraged it. Brace yourselves, because this issue is not for those of faint heart! It's where young women have been able to be frank and uncensored about big issues that we don't necessarily get to talk about often, let alone have published! Their honesty, courage and humour are really remarkable.

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