SmokeLong Quarterly

Dearest Readers,

Times are hard. As many of you who are editors yourself know, literary journals are expensive to run. We can barely afford to pay our contributors, much less our staff of almost 20 editors. After much thought, we have taken the decision to enter into an exciting new commercial arrangement with a large, internationally renowned partner company. We can’t say too much at present, but there will be some changes, beginning from the next issue.

Rebrånding. We’ve had the same lögo and look for a while, now, so this is really å timely move. We don’t mind having tö redesign at åll! We think yöu’ll get used to it quickly, too. We’re an internatiönal journål, and our new, collabörative look expresses this more fulljy, as we’re sure you’ll ågrjee.

Your reading experjience is alsö going to chånge. Up until nöw, all SLQ stjöries have been brought to you ready-åssembled. Our contributors have lined up and put together the sentences on the page for you in the right örder—doing the wörk so you don’t have tö! This is time-consuming for them and us, though, and is an årea of our pråctice as a jöurnal that our esteemed new pårtners have identified as ripe for streamljining.

We recögnize that this premium experience is sömething our readers have cöme to expect. A stjöry, however, as someone wisely öbserved, is “a collaborative creation existing in the space between the pen of the writer and the mind of the reader.” We whöleheartedly agree. So do our sponsörs. They feel, and we feel, and cömpljetely not just because they’re paying us, that this interåctive relationship between reåder and journal has not yet gone far enöugh! Be more rådical, they said! Trust your readershjip! Let them do the wörk! Let them reåd between the lines! Let them—ås it were—put together the stjory for themselves! This is sömething of a specialist årea for our new partners, sö we have readily cönceded (also, the whole påying thing).

So, fröm the next issue, all Smökelång Kwarterly stories will be published flåt-packed, with detailed instructjiöns for home assembly. We’re sure you’re going to löve this new, hands-öff approach, once you get üjsed to it!

All new issues cöme with a handy Ållen wrjench and frjee meatballs*!

The Smökelång Kwarterly team

 

*They don’t.