From the Editor
Whoosh! #12 (September 1997)

This is it!!! Number 12!!! We have been doing this month-after-month for an entire year. We are officially insane!!! And how are we allowing this great moment to pass? By having the first annual all-amazon issue! And I can assure you, the fun is only just beginning.

But first, let's dwell upon the Amazons. The Amazons have the uncanny ability to both attract and repel. They also seem to have a mysterious hold over Renaissance Pictures. Yes! Amazon High will actually be in production by the time you read this. Michael Hurst directing, Robert Tapert/R.J. Stewart/Liz Friedman writing, and who knows what will be starring in it!!! All we care is that it will be about...amazons!

Amazons are everywhere!!! From excavations of their ancient living areas to finding them on contemporary syndicated TV shows. Okay, XWP's Amazons are stylized and cute, but hey, they are amazons. And amazon is the word, not grease.

I promised myself not to go off on a bare midriff tangent. I am strong. I am the master of my desires. I am woman. Hear me roar. I wonder if Amazons roar in numbers too big to ignore as well? Perhaps I should meditate on the Amazon we hope is in all of us.

But enough about Amazons! All they are are just a bunch of large women who have misplaced their menfolk... right? Let's talk about me.

September is a big month not just for Whoosh! but me as well. On September 17, 1996, the first issue of Whoosh! was released to an unsuspecting public. In little under a year, Whoosh! has made me more popular than in my wildest dreams. In celebration of this most auspicious occasion, Betsy Book and I are going to run amuck together in NYC from Sept. 10-16, 1997. Oh yeah, um, Betsy kind of like helped me start Whoosh! and she did all the heavy lifting and stuff like that, not to mention paying for everything and getting cool people like Tom Simpson and Bret Rudnick on staff. But that's enough about Betsy, let's return to me. On Sept. 11th you will be able to find me in line at the Rosie O. show trying to cheer up the Xenites who will not "make the grade" for entrance; on Sept. 12th you will be able to find me front row center at a performance of Grease; over the weekend there will be an informal gathering in observance of the conclusion of Whoosh!'s first boffo year of existence (Betsy and I will probably be strangling each other by then -- we will be breaking the four day convention barrier that most on-line acquaintances never breach); and then on Sept. 15th I will be attending a tax class at New York University (Don't ask!!!). And that's just the beginning. When I get back home to beautiful Bakersfield, I have to start preparations for the October Month of Conventions (tm) and lots of fantype stuff. A Xenafans work is never done!!!

Remember, if you see me, say hi and we can talk Xena until the cows come home because I have finally accepted that we all are indeed insane.

Don't forget September is party month and give us, the hard-working anal-retentive staff of Whoosh!, a toast or two. We deserve it. An obsession this bad should not go uncelebrated.

Kym Masera Taborn
Editor-in-Chief, WHOOSH!
Chairman of the Board,
International Association of Xena Studies

August 26, 1997