APIARY MAGAZINE

In 2009, a group of friends and I co-founded a new Philly literary journal. We wanted to create a journal that looked like the literary city we knew: diverse, young, old, thriving, brave. So we set out to pair page poets with spoken word artists, retirees next to veterans writing to recover from PTSD, teens writing poetry alongside MFA fiction writers. Philly welcomed us kindly: organizers let us get up on stage at poetry slams and invite people to submit, and we handed out fliers at libraries and bars after every open mic we could find.

Our first issue was a little square publication we sold for $10 and launched with an all-day, multi-stage reading bonanaza at the University City Arts League. Eventually we built an advertising program, a volunteer staff, and a print circulation of 30,000. As executive editor, I recruited and directed staffers, strategized about collaborations and big projects like fundraising for and building a new website, and worked to keep morale high on 3 a.m. deadlines.

One of my favorite things about APIARY is that we decided that our literary community deserved fabulous launch parties where everyone felt like a celebrity, so we throw big dance parties to celebrate every issue. Hold please for video —

— and have published over 400 local authors, built a website to publish new work more regularly, and established Philly’s most regular literary calendar.

In 2016, I very proudly handed leadership off to the new guard of young APIARY editors (and occasionally play cheerleader and auntie when needed). APIARY’s phenomenal co-directors are now Steve Burns and Alexa Smith. You can find them, and APIARY, thriving at apiarymagazine.com.