by Mac Gander
As I settle in this new role at Divergents, I have one main thing in mind: Submissions!We aim to be a strong, vibrant outlet for the essays, stories, poems and art of people who identify as “divergent,” or different from the norm—and we depend on your submissions. We only exist because of the work we receive from our readers.
I know a lot of folks who write, or make art, or just have ideas that they want to put into words, may feel too unconfident to bring their work forward. Don’t be shy! We have a warm, welcoming submissions process, and our main standard for publication is authenticity. We’ll work with you to make sure your work is as good as it can be, and while we don’t have the resources to pay our contributors, your work will live on our website and reach a growing number of readers.
As part of our push to expand the scope of our magazine, I am excited to announce that John Rose has joined us as Poetry Editor. John is a long-time professor at Landmark College, where he teaches creative writing, identifying as someone on the spectrum. He studied with James Tate at U-Mass Amherst, where he received his MFA, and has been working for more than two decades on Woad, an epic poem centered on the events of a single moment on Flag Day, 1968, when a young boy came to full awareness.
We’re still looking for folks to help us with the visual arts and graphic design, so if you have skills and interest in those areas, we encourage you to contact us.
April is National Poetry Month, and a lot of folks try to celebrate the month by writing a poem a day—or even just reading a poem a day. In our own celebration of the month, we encourage our readers to help us meet our goal of publishing a new poem every day. Look for more information on this before April Fool’s Day.
A final word here about our one qualification for being published: our contributors are exclusively limited to those who identify as divergent– different from societal norms in some way.
The main idea is that you don’t need to have been diagnosed or labeled to give us your work. Just provide us with a brief statement (a sentence or two) of what qualifies you as divergent when you submit your work. At Divergents we celebrate all forms of difference!
Mac Gander
Editor in Chief