Dear friends,
Much has happened over the past few months. Please take a moment to read our statement in support of the movement for racial justice and police abolition.
Given the many social and economic uncertainties presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, we have found it necessary to adjust our publishing plans for the coming year:
- Our digital magazine will release a summer issue in July and resume its quarterly publication schedule. To compensate for our lapsed winter and spring 2020 issues, the summer 2020 issue will be made available free of charge, and current subscribers will be offered a partial refund.
- Our first print anthology, Revive!, has been postponed to October 2021.
- So has our anniversary forum on race, art, and the rural, where the winner and runners-up of the first Lucy Terry Prince Prize for rural poets of color are invited to read and speak as panelists.
- The winner and runners-up of the Lucy Terry Prince Prize will be announced in the coming weeks as planned. Thank you to all who submitted, and thank you to Major Jackson for serving as the prize’s inaugural judge.
As we continue to adjust to the new landscape, we remain dedicated to the mission of Mount Island as a platform for rural LGBTQ and POC writers and artists. To help us bring more voices to the table, we recently launched our new Q&A series, Mount Island’s Village Voices. Our first feature in the series is JC Wayne, a Burlington, VT artist and founder of The Poartry Project. Look out for more in the series on our blog.
We wish you all health and safety, and we look forward to sharing more updates on our projects through the year.
Sincerely,
Desmond Peeples, Editor in Chief
Mount Island