Very sad news earlier this week that Tariq Goddard is stepping down as publisher at Repeater and Zer0 Books.
There is a lot to be said about this news, but now is not the time. Alex’s statement above sums it up very nice, and you can read Tariq’s statement here.
I’d also like to reiterate my comments made on Twitter a few days ago:
When I first sent a very rough first draft of Egress to Tariq in 2019, I was very touched by his email in response, which followed quicker than I expected. It was to-the-point and somewhat mysterious: “Morning Matt, I had sort of been expecting to hear from you one of these days.”
This submission had felt like a shot in the dark, and the only one I was going to take; if Mark Fisher’s friend and publisher didn’t think that strange book was worth printing, I wouldn’t have bothered taking it anywhere else. Much to my surprise, Tariq’s response felt less like a negotiation than a homecoming, and that feeling of home is something I have really cherished about Repeater over the last five years I’ve spent contributing to, editing or proofreading its output. It is going to feel a lot less like home without Tariq at the helm.
There is always a risk that this sort of thing can start to feel like an obituary, but this is certainly the end of an era. I hope it is not the end of Tariq’s publishing antics overall, however. The misfits of the blogosphere still need some sort of ringleader to save us from our own obscurity.