It's My Birthday!
Mind helping me support an org I love?
Hurrah it’s my birthday. :) Before I go on, if you want to nerd out on fiction please join me, Guernica Senior Editor Adam Dalva, and author Sam Munson to talk about our stories in the magazine on Thursday, June 29 at 7 ET; you can sign up here!
Okay, now for birthday stuff. We all know it’s become a thing to fundraise on one’s birthday so today I’m hoping you can help me celebrate Electric Literature, where I’ve been a board member for half a decade now. I want to explain why EL is so important to me, and why I’d love it if you can help me support them.
When I see folks raising money on their birthdays, it’s usually for orgs that keep people alive, such as providing for basic needs or helping to cure diseases. But the thing is, literature also has the power to sustain us in the hardest of times, and it has certainly sustained me both as a reader and as a writer. Whether as a rural Filipino kid reading whatever I could find, a newly-transitioned trans woman trying to sort myself out, or a human being just trying to figure out how to be human, literature has always been my beacon and buoy through the challenges of life.
At a time when so many literary venues are closing, in part because they’re funded primarily by institutions or wealthy individuals, Electric Literature continues to thrive because small donations are the backbone of our support. During my time on EL’s board, I’ve witnessed how vital EL has been to literary culture, especially in nurturing new talent and making quality writing accessible to the world.
As someone who is deeply committed to making literature, both reading and writing, available to as many people as possible (the reason I started this newsletter to begin with), I continue to be proud of the work we’ve done at EL, from the time I joined during my wonderful friend Jess Zimmerman’s editorship, to the current tenure of Denne Michele Norris, the first Black and openly trans editor-in-chief of a major U.S. literary publication.
We can only continue this vital work with the grassroots support of other lit nerds, so if you care about supporting literature and the people who make it, please sign up for an EL membership!
<3 M.
Happy Birthday!