One year ago, The Offing formally separated from the Los Angeles Review of Books, which had been its home since its inception the year before. We didn’t have any money, but we believed in our mission and the artists who chose to share their work using this platform. In the coming months, we would be thrilled by the support from family, friends, artists, and readers who donated, kept visiting the site even while we went on a publishing slow down, kept submitting, and came to provide substantive financial support via Patreon, which covers a significant portion of our monthly expenses. That help allowed us to incorporate and become a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. With thanks, today we look back on one year of publishing as an independent organization, with each department sharing a favorite work from the last year.
From “Rise Up Thy Young Blood” by Illama Gore:
It is evident that the artist and activist community could very well be the leaders of a new movement that has taken form at the brink of four unpredictable years. This particular project is intended to inspire peace and unity with one emboldened loud statement, an open letter to Mr. Trump saying, “We’re here, and we will give everything we’ve got.”
After the election nothing felt immediate enough to publish. Working with these artists was cathartic and publishing the piece gave me space to realize that even without actual blood, any art being made right now is political.
— Katrina Mohn, Art Editor
Twenty-six jewel-studded cowboy boots circle me,
tongues glistening in the spur of heat.
Is this what being wanted should feel like?
Is that what being a sacrifice smells like?
This piece was the perfect mix of genuinely funny and deeply frightening; it shows the power of humor when conveying horror or discomfort in a way that truly resonates and sticks with readers.
— Alex Alvarez, Wit Tea Editor
Sure, maybe it’s true that Word is a thing from the mind of man—a thought-of, marvelous, displayed thing—while Sky is a limitless universe, the many-sided infinity of the atmosphere’s expanse. But given that tired explanation, how is their connection possible? How is it possible to understand their equal and opposite melodies summoned, merging?
This piece is an experience, one that somewhat replicates (but surely can’t come close to) the experience of participating in the tradition of Manas in that the reader is gradually taken in by, and swept away in, the wake and rhythm of the writing. As a newer member of The Offing‘s staff, I am proud to be a part of the magazine and honored to read Translation’s submissions. One of the things I love about translation is that it can be a collaborative, cross-linguistic, cross-cultural art, making it inherently cross-genre in a way, and the publications from this past year highlight translated literature at its best, exposing a variety of perspectives, forms, and ideas. So far this year, we have yet to publish from the same language twice. For The Offing‘s second year of independence, I hope to see and share more submissions that push a reader’s understanding of what translation must read, feel, or look like even further past its limits.
— Anna Claire Weber, Translation Editor
This shaping of time is one of the marvels of the Land of Witches. I have never seen a people so rested and happy; for them, time runs opposite to the way it runs for us: onerous tasks pass swiftly, while a pleasure may last for weeks or, indeed, forever.
The story prioritizes the imagination and reclaims stereotyped identities.
— Jax NTP, Fiction Reader
there are two ways to become
a man…
The depth despite the brevity of gender norms and vulnerability. Masculinity and mortality is breathtaking.
— Mahogany L. Browne, Executive Editor & Micro Editor
Eleanor Saitta, Black Lives Matter Protests, NYC; December 13, 2014.
[IMAGE: a photograph of a young Black boy with a beanie is sitting on a middle-aged Black man’s shoulders in a crowd of what appears to be protestors. The boy is holding up his arms in the “hands-up, don’t shoot” gesture.]
From “Silence Will Not Protect Us” by The Offing staff:
For many of us at The Offing, #BlackLivesMatter isn’t just a matter of principle. It is a matter of life and death for us as well as so many in our chosen and childhood families.
Like the Enumerate department, and like The Offing itself, this piece represents plurality, and the colossal strength that arises from unity in times of crises.
— Amanda K Horn, Associate Enumerate Editor
In this piece that advisory board member Khadijah Queen and I commissioned, Stacy Parker Le Melle opens:
Slain Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers said that “you can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” As NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others take knees during the national anthem, we turn to MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” — a rebuttal against critiques of Movement methods — to rebut those critiquing protest today. Millions of school children and adults have read and listened to MLK’s I Have a Dream speech. The rhetoric makes people think, feel. This is the power our resistance writers have to extend the reach of activists, to create internal shifts.
And with that begins a singular essay that brings together Black voices across artistic mediums to talk about Black Lives Matter and the arts. As I edited, I tried to match the love and care that Stacy put into this work, and I am immensely proud of the final publication.
Black art matters.
— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Editor in Chief
