an unplanned hiatus
hard to deny we kind of fell off the map for a month. pretty much right after launching. pretty much right after sharing a post about how we would try to continue business as usual. part of me wants to apologize, but part of me thinks that if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we have to prioritize our mental and physical health and not apologize for it. as much as we would love to be able to schedule our breaks, sometimes that’s not possible. and that’s okay, too.
so i’m not going to apologize. but i will just say that i got really sick for about a month. still coming in and out of a fever now, but am mostly better. even on the days that i do feel better, i don’t exactly think that new archives can just pretend that things are normal. that feels impossible. and disengenuous. and irresponsible.
also! i don’t know if anyone knew this (i’m sure you all did, and i was the only naive optimist), but 70% of your job as an editor is to pester people about meeting their deadlines. which is the worst job under any circumstances. and especially now. the last thing i want to do during a global pandemic is email someone and say, “... so about that second draft that was due two days ago?” people need to disappear into bed, into their minds, into video games, into baking, whatever.
how do we let them disappear but still have a publication? and how do we get people paid?
step one was telling every writer who had a review in progress that they could invoice matt as if their review had been published while we figured out what to do.
step two is this: we are going to suspend our normal content schedule, and focus on launching a silly little new series that responds to the COVID-19 crisis in what is hopefully a refreshing way. it will be low stakes, on an open submission basis, will get a tiny bit of money into the hands of those who contribute, and ideally bring a snippet of joy and intimacy to everyone’s feed without the pressure of a regimented scheduled publication.
i’ll announce in the coming days. love to you all. hope you are safe and healthy. —satpreet