The Memoirist Quarterly is now available
How We’re Sharing Your Writing and Art Outside of Medium
One thing that remains a constant in life is change. Things here at Medium are in a state of flux these days. Some people lament the new Partner Program calculations, while other people enjoy windfall profits.
KiKi Walter and I wanted to go in a different direction. Instead of becoming institutionalized on one platform, we branched out. We created something different.
Using the close friendships and community we’ve built on Medium as a springboard, The Memoirist Quarterly was launched just a couple of weeks ago.
I had personally never worked on a project like this and leaned heavily on Kristi for her expertise in the publishing world. Reading the submissions and curating stories was an absolute delight. The stories are amazing, and to see them in print is a completely different experience than seeing them in a digital format.
As much as I love Medium, taking a few of the same stories and seeing them in a new light hits totally differently.
We paid writers and artists for their work, and it cost us a lot of money. Kristi also invested many, many hours in reformatting and sizing everything properly. We don’t expect to break even on the project, but it was never about the money.
Some of the stories in the book are stories originally published here on Medium. Since we’re publishers here, we already knew the writers hadn’t made a whole lot of money on them. This was our way of paying them a little something back for their friendship, hard work, and dedication to the craft of personal essay and memoir writing.
With the MPP changing and an increased spotlight on personal essays and memoirs, our timing couldn’t have been better. These genres seem to be doing quite well on the platform, which is fantastic because they take incredible strength and emotional depth to flesh out. Diving deep into the most meaningful parts of your life can be exhausting, and we now have a new way to show our appreciation.
As wonderful as the stories are, collecting art and photography was a great pleasure as well. We collected photography from a few sources, including my Colombian brother Carlos Garbiras, and some art from Jenny Lane. The most important piece of art was that of 19-year-old Emily Dooley, inspired by the loss of her sister. She was thrilled to see her art in a literary journal, and now we have something more to share.
In addition to the softcover version, there is now a Kindle version available, as well as a hardcover version on premium paper. This may not seem like a big deal because the original softcover looked great. But to see this thing hardbound with high-quality paper will be simply wonderful.
The Kindle version is available for $9.99, or for free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber. The original version is $23.80, and the new and best deal is the hardcover version for $32.55.
Submissions for the November edition are opening up on September 1st. You can submit using this link during the entire month of September. We would love to feature more diverse art and stories for the next issue, so get your best stories and art ready to go. We’re looking for your best work.
P.S. If you search for The Memoirist Quarterly on Amazon, it does some weird thing with the filter, so use this link if you can’t find it.
On a personal note, there’s lots of negativity floating around out there about the changes on the platform. There are many, many good things happening too.
Remember: change is inevitable, and always consider the source.
Love,
Chris and Kristi