By Jess Weible

When I sit down to write about The Watershed Journal (TWJ), there’s always a strong temptation to start at the beginning. This literary community has blossomed and bloomed so brilliantly in only a few years. It would be easy to get swept away with the momentum and forget where and why we started. 

I started the Writer’s Block Party in 2017 because I wanted to take myself more seriously as a writer and I wanted to connect with other writers. I had been writing for the local newspaper and I was meeting so many interesting and creative people, some of them with the same impulse for putting words on paper that I had. At first we had a small group of about five or six people who would meet once a month at Fusion Cafe and share our work. After every meeting, listening to their stories, inspired by their ideas, I would walk away feeling energized, inspired, and rejuvenated. It gave me this feeling that more was possible – more of what, I wasn’t sure, but the experience was generative and it was exactly what I needed creatively.

In the spring of 2018, a few members of the Writer’s Block Party – Sarah Rossey, Kirke Wise, Amanda Smith (then Carrier), and I rallied together with the idea of publishing our own literary magazine. I won’t speak for them, but I’ll confess that I barely knew what a literary magazine was at the time. But I had this vision where all of the writers that I had met and who had shared their work would have a place where their voices would be heard. 

Our first decision in making this idea come to life was giving it a name. We knew that we wanted to have a local focus and that our name should reflect our shared sense of identity, living in this place. We had maybe four or five contenders, but I remember one of the ideas Amanda offered was Hometown Trails, which hit all the right notes. But there was something about the feeling of possibility in the name The Watershed Journal, the phrase “watershed moment” meaning a turning point or moment of change. It felt like something new was about to happen and the name captured that excitement. 

Still, my expectations were modest. I thought we might put together a nice, little spiral-bound collection. Maybe print out a few dozen copies to share among friends and family. I remember working on the cover design in a free version of Publisher Plus on my laptop using an image of the sun rising over a frosted field of grass, the light hitting the glistening blades so that they almost sparkled. It was a picture Sarah had taken and selected as the perfect image to debut our new publication. She was right. In fact, with the combination of Sarah’s amazing eye for design and impressive technical skills, the first edition of The Watershed Journal far exceeded my expectations. She brought a professionalism and quality to the edition that elevated all of our work. And somehow, almost 20 editions later, she has continued to lead us all through an evolution of design and composition that has been breathtaking to watch. 

But when it came time to print, that first edition of The Watershed Journal almost didn’t happen. We had a fundraiser to support the cost of printing and everyone had chipped in, but the cost ended up being quite a bit more than we expected. Kirke, who had such a strong belief in this whole literary experiment that he had made it all seem possible, came to the rescue with a donation that helped us get those first, glossy copies in the hands of readers. 

After the debut of that first edition, something incredible happened. Readers and writers from all over our region took notice of what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it. We started hosting writer’s workshops and poetry readings. Participation at Writer’s Block Party meetings doubled, then tripled. I still remember the first time I met each member of our literary community at one of these events or at first through their submissions to the magazine. When I think about TWJ, I think about the people, their stories, and the look in their eyes when they experience the same thing I described from those early writer’s meetings – the inspiration and the feeling of possibility. You can write a poem. You can finish your book. You can publish it and share it with the world. Your voice matters and we will listen. 

As for where TWJ is right now, Amanda is taking some time for her family and raising her beautiful daughter. Kirke is still an active and tremendous supporter of TWJ as well as a member of our board. Sarah is now our first paid employee of TWJ, our Office Manager and Creative Director, working part time to run the organization and literary arts center and continuing to wow us with her layout/design work. I am volunteering as Executive Director and acting as interim board President. And so many of you have joined us in so many different ways, making our dreams of empowering and elevating regional authorship a reality. 

Thank you.