Place and politics collide in a multimedia free-for-all—a ghost tour of a boom city struggling to keep its soul. Available Now at Indiebound, and bookstores and online retailers everywhere
This anthology gathers essays, interviews, photography, and comix to reconstruct community hubs lost to growth. From the settlements of Native American tribes to the incubators of grunge, from a foxxxy cabaret to an Old Spaghetti Factory, Ghosts of Seattle Past provides an eyes-on-the-street view of a city in flux.
The Ghosts of Seattle Past anthology comes at a critical point: Seattle had the country's steepest rent hikes in 2015. The city is becoming a national focal point for issues of development. Both recent transplants and the old guard are trying to figure out how to live in the new landscape. Through their warm, conversational, whip-smart voices, the city speaks not only to the current boom, but also to longer-brewing problems of segregation, queer erasure, and colonization. Tracing the issues across six hand-drawn maps, Seattle's best-known artists (including Elissa Washuta, Kate Lebo, and Paul Constant) join community lynchpins (including Chief Seattle's great-great-great-great grandson) in a dialogue as incisively political as it is richly human.
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Anthology curator Jaimee Garbacik is a book editor, writer, artist, youth equity advocate, and the owner and founder of Footnote Editorial. She previously authored Gender and Sexuality for Beginners, a critical examination of the sex-gender system and the evolution of gender roles. Read an interview with Jaimee.
Josh Powell, artist behind the anthology's hand-drawn maps, is the former director of all-ages youth-led music and arts organization The Vera Project and co-founder of Seattle nonprofit The Bikery. He currently works at Seattle's largest environmental remediation firm.
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Part eulogy, part cultural cautionary tale, this book is Seattle’s collective conscience––reminding us of who we used to be.
--Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Examples of artwork included in Ghosts of Seattle Past
Ghosts of Seattle Past
Curated and edited by Jaimee Garbacik
Designed by Jon Horn
Maps by Josh Powell
Published by Chin Music Press
To request a review copy, please contact
Ryan Davis of Smarthouse Creative: ryan@smarthousecreative.com // 206.491.3738
"Jaimee Garbacik, Josh Powell, and Jon Horn have created Ghosts of Seattle Past, a tripartite art engine that's producing tons of art based on the memories of Seattle mossbacks, transplants, and the dispossessed alike…a collection of memories that might help us all see some of the commonalities between our many experiences of our many Seattles." -Rich Smith, The Stranger
"Ghostswill…help you understand that a city is not just its storefronts or its luxury apartments: Every city is also made up of people—and the places that are not there anymore.” -Paul Constant, Seattle Weekly
"Ghosts has sought to identify places that matter — things that go beyond historic landmarks, but are part of the cultural life and landscape of the city past and present."-Knute Berger, Crosscut
"Ghosts of Seattle Past aims to create a permanent archive of once beloved Seattle establishments and is asking residents to submit stories, photographs, drawings, and essays for a [new] art installation. There’s no limit on the memories you choose to share–the venue, restaurant, shop or place remembered could have vanished yesterday or melted forever ago." -Anna Boyd, Stackedd Magazine
Image credits (from top to bottom): "The Here" by Eroyn Franklin; Members of the feminist punk band Tacocat dance at the DIY venue The Funny Button; Janet Nechama Miller's "Melrose & Pine, before"; "Lucky Devil" by Mita Mahalo; "Gone But Not Forgotten" by Jon Strongbow.