Steve Ahlquist

By his own admission, Steve Ahlquist, the former owner of Atomic Comics & Video, has “always been a writer.” He got his start in comic books and loves that they can communicate “ridiculous, beautiful new ideas.” After struggling to find a “home for his writing,” Steve went on to pen the Oz Squad series and co-create the anthology Strange Eggs. And while he will “always be a comics guy,” he eventually began thinking about how his work “could have an impact on the world,” which led him to journalism. He began with op-eds and started reporting on topics that he “felt were being ignored,” first for RI Future and later Uprise RI.

His approach to journalism is adamantly community-based. He tries to “look at the people affected by these governmental decisions, and cover the way they access, or not, the levers of power.” He thinks about his activism this way: “I can’t save the world, but maybe I can help save a small piece of it, and if there are a few million other people working this hard to save it, maybe we have a fighting chance.”

See Steve’s stories — written and filmed — at UpriseRI.com