Remembering The Offing’s Former Offsite Editor, Feliks Garcia
by Mimi Wong, Executive Editor and Enumerate Editor
Read Feliks’s final essay “Waiting Rooms” at The Offing.
Like me, Feliks Garcia was another young writer on staff when I first joined The Offing nearly two years ago. Up until that point, I had been squirreling away my writing in a mostly solitary state, and it wasn’t until The Offing introduced me to a community that I understood what I had been missing.
I was far from the only one who had felt that way. In his “Meet the Editors” questionnaire that we all had filled out as part of The Offing’s November fundraising drive, Feliks wrote, “I found The Offing at a time when my local literary scene rejected the very idea of spaces for writers of color, and all of the independent publications getting recognition only published the work of white authors.” As a fellow writer of color, I could personally identify with that frustration. We all understood it.
Earlier that August, we got the opportunity to commiserate in person during a happy hour that Feliks had helped organize for the New York-based folks. I liked Feliks immediately, and felt as comfortable talking with him as I would have with a long-time acquaintance. Feliks shared that he was working on a personal essay about his relationship as a Mexican American to police violence. I left that evening, feeling inspired and looking forward to more gatherings to come.
I didn’t find out until January that Feliks had left The Offing. We chatted on Twitter about the struggles of “this writing business” — the eternal dilemma of finding paid work while also leaving enough time aside for the passion projects. Feliks had needed to dedicate himself to searching for a full-time job, while I faced my own setback of having lost my agent. “I dread that day when I actually write my mixed-race/history/identity tome,” he lamented to me. “Do it, do it,” I said, encouragingly, to which he replied: “When I first read Oscar Wao a few years ago, I told my friend, ‘I really just want to write like that,’ and she was like, ‘OH you want like a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. GOOD GOAL BRO.’” We enjoyed a chuckle over that.
We would keep in touch via social media, and I was excited to see that Feliks had landed a reporting position at The Independent. (They published a lovely obituary about him here.) I’m sure like many of his friends and colleagues, I had assumed that it was just the beginning of a long career. But deep down inside, I think I was quietly waiting for the day that he would get to write his Great American Novel, and I would have been one of the first in line to read it. So I guess that’s what I was most sad about that day I learned of Feliks’ passing. I was sad for Feliks, but most of all I was sad for the rest of us who will miss his light, his words, and the enormity of his talent and potential. In remembering Feliks, I continue to think about the significance of what a voice like his represented, and I grieve the loss.
❤
