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Membership – Making a Huge Difference for Our Literary Magazine

The Birth of an Extremely Local Magazine

The Watershed Journal debuted its first magazine in the summer of 2018. 19 submitters sent in 57 stories, poems and photographs, and we paired them together for our first 40-page magazine. Unsure of the reception we would have within the community, we hit the pavement hard drumming up advertisers and supporters in our local area to make this magazine happen. We planned collaborative events with other local arts efforts and set up booths at local festivals. This was a heady time.

We were making it up as we went. Our little band of volunteers was passionate and dedicated, our submitters were highly supportive and eager to share their work, and our idea was fueled by the enthusiasm for local voices we saw within our community. We didn’t know the first thing about printing a magazine or running a nonprofit organization. This first magazine was a steep learning curve – there were lots of hiccups along the way and we felt like we were constantly reinventing the wheel.

A couple of months later we decided to publish a second magazine, and doubled our submitters and almost tripled our total submissions for that Fall 2018 Edition. A few retail locations had signed up to distribute The Watershed Journal and our sales and advertising were sufficient to provide for our costs. We did some soul-searching as a volunteer group and decided we were ready to look at a full year of quarterly magazines in 2019. Things were getting serious. It was time to look at a short-term sustainability that would allow us to continue to bring the first and best resources to the storytellers in our area.

The Road to Sustainability through TWJ Memberships

That’s when we inaugurated the TWJ Membership program. We were on our way to filing for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in early 2019 and we knew we needed some baseline financial support to fulfill our mission of developing our literary community. So we reached out to our submitters, writers groups and readers with a special offer: for $75 a year, Members would receive a year’s subscription to The Watershed Journal, with all four magazines mailed to their door, as well as newsletters with exclusive content and even a special Editor’s Edition just for Members, containing original work from the TWJ staff. 

Because of the people who jumped on this first year of TWJ Membership, we were able to make 2019 an epic year of literary activity and community-building. From our quarterly Workshops to monthly writer’s meetings with Writer’s Block Party, from the networking we’ve built across platforms and counties to the content we’ve procured and created — we are ending our first calendar year as a Literary Group with ambitions bared and hearts full. No amount of thanks could cover what our 2019 Members made possible for us.

And at the heart of it all is our cornerstone, the magazine itself. We have put out four beautiful, inspiring and challenging magazines, each unique in character and tone. While many of our submitters have been loyally sending us their work from the beginning, each edition brings in new voices and perspectives, and we believe the mix of both veteran and fresh voices is immensely valuable. 

Looking Forward to 2020

We are constantly re-evaluating our process and efforts to make sure we are effectively reaching and serving our literary community. This year, we’ve added a podcast that we produce and stream on our website called Writers of the Watershed, highlighting our local submitters and what makes them tick. We also launched our blog, The Tributary, to dive deeper into our mission and community as well as offer tons of resources for writers, poets and artists. No matter how many alterations we go through, however, the most important thing to us will always be to better represent the storytellers who call our region home. 

Now here we are again, planning for another full year of extremely local literary excitement. So much has changed and grown since we began. What has not changed is our passion for regional voices. We will continue to publish quarterly in 2020, as well as provide our quarterly Workshops and other events. However, we have a mind for growth and are working on some very exciting opportunities and literary initiatives in the next year. This Membership program provides a foundation of sustainability that allows us to think big for next year!

We are excited about the poetry, writing, photography and artwork that will come our way in 2020, and can’t wait to continue to invest in the individuals who believe that their stories, our stories, matter. 

2020 TWJ Membership

And we need your help. This week we kicked off our 2020 Membership drive to garner support for all our community efforts. Our mostly-volunteer, nonprofit group is financially conservative and transparent and we work hard to take our small budget and make the absolute most of it. There’s a lot we have up our sleeves for this next year, and your $75 makes a huge difference for us as we bring the first and best resources to our literary community.

Perks of 2020 TWJ Membership:

  • Annual subscription to The Watershed Journal: that’s four magazines, mailed directly to your door!
  • 8 x 10 professional print out of a featured photograph from each edition
  • Quarterly emailed newsletters with exclusive content from behind-the-scenes and events
  • Editor’s Edition – gorgeous, full-color bonus publication with original writing, photography and artwork by TWJ staff members, Jessica Weible and Sarah Rossey
  • Tons of good literary karma from supporting our local efforts 🙂

— TWJ Literary Group

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