The Shore began as many creative projects do – the product of many years of conversation, sublimation, and procrastination. In the last of a series of drunken conversations on a warm vacation, something broke free of our minds and mouths and took control of our hands.

Armed with lousy pens and hotel stationery, a large bottle of cheap soda, and a larger bottle of even cheaper tequila, we filled and randomly arranged an assortment of plastic beer cups and began a haphazard selection process. Our choices were fumbling and blind but we were sure that we were on to something, finally. We were going to do something.

But what exactly?

Something creative, something to do with writing and art and publishing, a magazine for sure, but more than that. But what to call it? The names! Ugh. You would have cringed. Winced! Grimaced. Undoubtedly you would have questioned our judgment, for surely people this inspired but so obviously misguided couldn’t possibly pull off something like “a magazine and more.” So, that fateful night, we sat hemming and hawing and mulling and stewing, writing down our brazen attempts, while the name, the beautiful, fitting, and obvious name, lay not more than a few steps away.

(A caveat – requests for the original name list will be met with chuckles and a curt dismissal, or a joke list that is indistinguishable from the original)

We soon returned home, to the cold, where we continued to wrack our muddled brains, asked our friends for ideas, took random stabs in dictionaries, tried stream-of-consciousness techniques… anything and everything to name this something.

The final process was deceptively simple, insulting even, in its redundancy. As with the idea for the original something, the name of the something was borne of sublimation and drunkenness, a spontaneous utterance noted, paused upon, and accepted with a hearty, “Good enough.”

In the distance, men, women, and children rejoiced, popping giant, beige, confetti-filled balloons as sirens wailed and fireworks exploded to the beat of a thunderous marching band.

The Shore had arrived.