The past six months have been amazing. Anyone who knows me knows that I deplore hyperbole. Nothing is really awesome. Few things are fantastic. And, the amazing only happens once in a while.
The past six months have been amazing – on the personal and the publishing fronts.
We launched Backchannels Journal January 2019 after having had one planning meeting prior to that. We received about 45 submissions for our first edition which we published in April with 17 prose and poetry pieces included in the edition.
We opened our second reading period last spring and we have received over 400 submissions! (I don’t use exclamation points often – it’s the punctuation of hyperbole.)
We are in awe.
We are amazed.
We are still reading.
The talent that the world has offered to Backchannels is outstanding. The patience our submitters have given us as we moved our response deadline over and over and yet again is humbling.
One thing that makes us different than some other journals is that we are a group of three women who want to create a writing community that encompasses everyone who wants to be a part of it. To that end: we really read each and every piece that you submit. We talk about them; we text about them; we re-read; we debate. And, all of that takes time when you have this many submissions.
We published our second edition on September 30 this year. We had visual artists join the community with this edition, and we are so grateful for the excellent art, prose and poetry we were able to publish.
Now, we are finally finishing reading all of the submissions we received over the summer months. We have our January edition almost finalized, and we have some pieces ready for our spring edition. We will open a reading period at the end of January because we want more. We love reading and talking about and publishing your work.
In the next two months, we are putting some structures into place to help us better manage the reading and workflow going forward. We will be offering some great opportunities for you on Patreon. We will be reaching out to you for more submissions, and we would like to do some interviews with you. Who knows – maybe we will start reviewing your books – the possibilities are unlimited.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Check our website Backchannelsjournal.net to read the editions and be updated on all things Backchannels.
We appreciate you. Thank you for being part of our growing writers’ community.