Keep TWJ Authentic, submit what you’ve got!
When we started a literary magazine in the rural foothills of Western Pennsylvania, we knew the odds and obstacles we were facing. In the larger scheme of publishing we were going against the grain, getting a little weird with it. Many other magazines were moving away from print, generating income from submission fees and selectively choosing which voices were promoted, but this was not the way we wanted to represent our region.
A Wonderful and Surprising Local Literary Movement
It was a risk to throw our efforts behind a print magazine. And then we made our task even more challenging; we decided to run the magazine on a strictly inclusive basis. All of the storytelling going on in our region would be welcome, no one would be turned away because they didn’t meet some arbitrary definition of “good.” There was something immensely valuable happening in the literary community around us and wanted the world to know it in its wonderful and surprising fullness.
We are lucky to have a great diversity of life happening in our region. Incredibly talented people choose to live here and we thought it was a shame that so many were having trouble being published. The area we serve has two major factors working against it: one, lack of access to publishing opportunities and two, the uphill battle against stereotypical and exploitative media already being produced about our area. Our mission with The Watershed Journal was and is to give the world a more authentic view of what people are like around here, what people are capable of.
The Right Niche
Now we are working on producing our eighth magazine – two years’ worth of stories, poems, essays, artwork and photography. Perhaps we wondered at the beginning whether the content would run dry, the initial excitement about local voices would wane and eventually our magazines would sit on the shelves, unpurchased, unread. Indeed, the opposite has been the case!
The more people we publish, the more storytellers come out of the woodwork with endearing and exciting content. We are selling out of our magazines every quarter and our writer’s social group is growing heartily (as are the many writers groups going on around the area). We are committed to never turning away an eligible submitter and, because of this, we are constantly discovering new voices. The literary movement in our area is exploding and we are honored to be a part of presenting the talent in our area to a wider readership across the country.
Our submitters are one big reason why we have been so successful. Our readers are another. There is a hunger in our region for better representation than what is currently available from the media. At some point, our community decided we would rather be creators of our own pop culture rather than consume what others might have to say about us. We opted for authenticity, diversity and honesty. In a literary world obsessed with superlatives, wanting to know who is better than whom, we instead have chosen to focus on what is real and uplift the voices in our area in truth.
Inclusivity: the Road to Authenticity
Inclusivity isn’t something we can claim and move on from. Our commitment to inclusivity has been tested at every turn and that’s how we like it. The Watershed Journal is all about uplifting and empowering the local literary community and providing our readers with an ever-changing, ever-adapting magazine representative of our region.
So what do we mean by “keep TWJ authentic?” We mean help us include as many voices as possible! Help us better represent the amazing stories and artwork being produced in our area by adding your own perspective.
Do you live in the western Pennsylvania Wilds? Do you write, draw, photograph or create? We want to showcase you! If you’ve been published in other places or have never shared your work before (or somewhere in between), we would be honored to publish you. We are looking for all styles, forms, subjects, perspectives that fall within our simple guidelines. Each magazine takes on a different tone and character depending on the content sent to us that period, and we love to take our submitters’ lead.
Get Published – help keep TWJ authentic
Have something you’re thinking about submitting but aren’t sure whether it’s what we’re looking for? You can check out past editions in many local libraries in our area to get a taste of what we have had submitted in the past. Don’t see anything like what you’re doing? Send it to us! Help us keep TWJ authentic by adding your voice to our representation of the region. We welcome the odd, the heartwarming, the challenging, the entertaining.
In 2020, we have also added book publishing to better serve those into longer-form writing. We are accepting submissions of completed manuscripts through April 1, 2020 and will select one book by committee to publish cooperatively with the author. This First Book Project is made possible by a generous grant from Clarion University and we are so excited to read more manuscripts from local authors!
Every quarter we host a free workshop where we invite potential submitters to join us and share their work in an encouraging and open environment. You’ll be able to get feedback from TWJ editors and other local writers and artists while you strengthen your skills. In fact, the next workshop is coming up next Sunday, March 8, from 1-4pm at Fusion Cafe in Brookville. We hope to see you there!
- Submit today: thewatershedjournal@gmail.com
- Check out the magazine’s submissions guidelines
- Find out more about our long-form book publishing
- Discover more about the TWJ Team
