Response was a journal aimed at engendering and supporting new work, which meant that all of the work included in Response was created (or, in some cases, adapted) specifically for the journal. You can think of it like a glorified artistic exercise if you’d like, but we preferred to think of it more like an opportunity.
It was a super fun and novel journal to run (see how it worked below). Every issue was full of folks I knew or folks who were recommended to me by folks who had been in previous issues. I spent a long time building tools and processes to make the creation of the journal as automated as possible. We had a relatively interesting-looking website. It was a decent amount of work but very rewarding.
Unfortunately, like many "little magazines," it had but a brief existence. At a certain point it become too much for me to manage all the contributors (i.e., finding folks willing to do it) on top of my day job and other projects, and so I spun it down after Issue 04. We published some good stuff, however, and so I want to make sure it has a home at least somewhere on the internet for at least a while longer.
Response ran from June 2020 through April 2022. We published four issues, which you can read for free or buy below (really you should just read the PDF):
| Issue | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|
Response 01 |
||
Response 02 |
||
Response 03 |
||
Response 04 |
Our issues worked like this:
-
The call: two and a half months before publication, solicited writers, poets, and artists will get notified that we want their work, and we ask if they’ll do some for us.
-
The response: Two months out is the deadline to say whether a contributor is in or not. At this time the work (a quote, painting, text, etc.,) which they’ll be responding to will be revealed those who’ve said that they are in.
-
The work: Contributors have between two months out and one month out to complete the work. This means that all the initial work done for the journal takes place within a month (~30 days). This constraint is intentional.
-
The response to the work: A week after their initial submission, contributors will receive some feedback from that issue’s guest editors.
-
The work continues: Contributors then have up to two weeks to send us revisions, changes, something completely new, etc. Here’s the thing: contributors do not have to make any changes if they don’t want to.
-
The work gets out: After this process, the usual production steps take place (copyediting, page proofs, etc.), then the journal is put out into the world.