Support Poetry! Pay Contributors.
Lemon Hound is back. We are committed to creating a sustainable, paying space to foster dynamic, aesthetically diverse literary discourse. We have taken several key steps toward creating this sustainability. First, we have found support in the manner of web hosting and server space. Maintaining the site was a huge concern and both time and financial expense so we are extremely grateful to our benefactor. Second, the site will be connected to Concordia and offer an educational opportunity for students to be involved in the maintenance and creation of the site.
These two essential pillars allow Lemon Hound to move forward on a path of sustainability. However, we still need to tap into funding sources to meet our goal of paying contributors. That is our focus over the next year. We are working out a fundraising plan, and will be applying for relevant grants, but here's the catch 22: we need to pay writers before we are eligible for many of the funding sources available to literary journals.
So, having secured two of the three basics, how do we move forward? First, we will not put up a paywall, but we will be encouraging people to subscribe to the site and the print issues once we get them up and running. I encourage anyone who can to tap the button on the site--there will be an option to subscribe once we're up and running. Or here at the gofundme.
In a world of dwindling opportunities for writers to be paid, we feel it's our duty to build a sustainable site. Subscription money will go directly to paying writers for their work. I will not be paid, for example, and the educational component will take up much of the administration.
So, while we need support to get up and running (or paying) you should know that we don't plan on only asking for donations. We hope you'll want to subscribe, but we take our role in creating sustainable literary communities very seriously and will be developing ongoing fundraising strategies. In short, I'm not asking you to pay for our labour of love, or only that in any case, we're asking you to help us create a sustainable space and invest in our (and the literary community's) growth.
How will we give back? First in those we train in our educational component, and in those we mentor outside of our program (we'll have a wide range of opportunities for writers to have mentorship and guidance). Second in our archiving of essential work (we'll keep everything we've posted up on the site). Third in our commitment to create paying opportunities for creative criticism, to commission essays, post previews of upcoming releases, interviews, podcasts, excerpts from events and poets & writers reading their favorite work, and in posting canonical, archival work--original and critical .
It's ambitious. But then we're ambitious, and we have a track record. We want to be part of the solution. What I'm suggesting is big, but it's also merely an extension of what we've done. So. Stay tuned. Sign up, support, stay informed.
