as we approach our fifteen-year anniversary at Raleigh Review, the magazine is changing direction again. We're used to changing course whenever we, as a team, believe we're going off the rails, I have welcomed those changes.
One project we are launching in the coming months for the magazine community called Zine Alive Archive. This project is for all those who have poured every ounce of themselves into their beloved magazines and who then had to stop publishing. After ceasing their publications, many boiled down and labeled those now closed magazines with one word and that is a downplay of the effort and the sacrifices made by all those involved. When the closing day eventually comes for a magazine, "defunct," doesn't tell any of the story of the life's work, the passions, nor does it respect the talent inside and behind every magazine that has to halt their publications for one reason or another. And that is why we're launching Zine Alive Archive, a forthcoming repository for those
magazines that have had to close their publications.
Every sale of this magazine in your hands goes to pay for the next issue. Yes, the magazine began with me on my plug-and-play blogzine called RIG Poetry on 21 February 2010, all brewed inside my Raleigh home office during a metaphorical storm.
I turned the original ignition switch and placed the art first. The art came above my own standing or the self-aggrandizements and self-importance of anyone else.
Above all else, our talented team based all over the USA and around the globe is the reason this magazine is still here. I am now just a proud team member at Raleigh Review. The magazine has grown way beyond me as the lone initiator, the sole originator, the founder, the creator, a co-incorporator, the first proprietor (a master of this or that or whatever) all held up inside my Raleigh home with my growing family.
All I did was strike the match and then continuously breathed life into this magazine by putting the art first. With our team adding in talents and expertise over these fifteen years, our magazine is now its own entity, its very own being. Still, over the past few years, I have been forced to face my own mortality and it seems fitting that contributions to the field include helping to ensure all our magazines continue to be available for the generations to come. We thank you for supporting us as we work to promote accessible works of experience that convey empathy and understanding among our neighbors all over the globe.
