OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH OWL MEDIA

An Important Announcement from Rook T. Winchester

There are inflection points in a writer’s life — the kind that crack open the sky for a moment and let the world rearrange itself — and lately I’ve felt one stalking me like a shadow that refuses to stay in its assigned place. You wake up one morning, rub your eyes, and realize you’ve been drafted into something bigger than yourself. Not by force, but by momentum, by alignment, by the unmistakable smell of history cooking on high heat.

So let’s make this official: Closer to the Edge has entered into a partnership with Owl Media.

Before anyone panics, gasps, speculates, or starts scrawling conspiracy diagrams with red yarn and pushpins: I am continuing my full role as Editor-in-Chief at Closer to the Edge. Our publication isn’t going anywhere. . If anything, Owl Media is the jetpack strapped to our back, not a cage around our wings. This collective strengthens us — strengthens every freelancer, photographer, and independent journalist who deserves a fighting chance in a media landscape full of cowards.

Our partnership with Owl Media doesn’t dilute our work — it supercharges it. This is not a departure. This is an expansion.

I’m stepping into a creative syndicate built for velocity, honesty, and the kind of journalistic stubbornness that refuses to let lies curdle into “accepted fact.” Owl Media is a nationwide network of writers, photographers, and videographers who do not wait for permission, access, or establishment approval. They show up. They document. They report. They create. They move.

Now, about the symbolism.

Rook is not just a pen name. The word itself has several definitions, and one of them is a crow.

And if you know your mythology, you know that crows and owls don’t always get along. One sees the future. One sees in the dark. One collects secrets. One hunts what hides. They’re ancient rivals in half the world’s folklore.

But rumor also has it — whispered in the treetops, muttered in old stories — that when a crow and an owl share a common enemy, their alliance becomes something other creatures fear.

And the common enemy right now is Fascism.

Full stop.

If authoritarianism wants to remake America into a playground for the wealthy and a prison yard for everyone else, then yes, the crow and the owl can put aside their quarrels and form a two-pronged aerial assault capable of shredding propaganda mid-flight. A rook and an owl do not need to merge identities or abandon their domains. They only need to hunt in the same direction.

So here we go — a crow in the owl’s nest, staring out over a country on the brink, sharpening every tool at our disposal, ready to report what others sanitize, photograph what others ignore, and say what others are too compromised to say.

Let’s make some noise. Let’s make it impossible to look away. Let’s make the fascists nervous again.

— Rook T. Winchester

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To help foster our new partnership with Owl Media, please consider upgrading your subscription and becoming a paid supporter. We’re going to need all the help we can get. Thank you for keeping Closer to the Edge alive and kicking. Let’s fight fascism together.