“And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.” - Tim O'Brien
Since 2001, The United States has sent over two million of its men and women, young and old, to war. They have borne witness to war without fronts, combat without respite, and ever-changing distinctions between enemy and ally. They have borne witness to history.
Line of Advance will launch as a non-profit online literary journal dedicated to seeking out, giving voice to and preserving the literary writings of these soldiers.
And we're asking for your help to help make this vision a reality. We're raising funds for seed money that will help us get off the ground in order to meet our Veteran's Day 2013 launch date.
Q: How will Line of Advance work? The journal itself will be published bi-monthly in various ebook formats (iOS, Kindle, ePub) and will be available for as small a fee as we can manage. An annual high-quality printed edition of the journal will be produced each Veterans Day beginning in 2014 and made available for order as well. We have created an Editors Board of highly regarded writers and professors to assist us in reviewing submitted work for publication. Writers whose work is selected for publication will receive financial awards, and should we raise sufficient funds, small college scholarships for either themselves or their children. Ongoing content will be posted at www.lineofadvance.org, including guest columns, recommended reading, and journal news updates.
Q: Who are the founders? Line of Advance was founded by three American military veterans (two enlisted, one officer) who served together in Afghanistan and recognized that veterans needed to to tell their stories, and that the public deserved to read them.
Q: What will funds be used for? Funds contributed via Indiegogo will be used to help pay for startup costs including website and ebook design and development, awards for writers, legal fees and advertising.
Q: Where will the writing come from? We have already begun reaching out to the veteran community through various channels to invite writing submissions. We will pay for advertising space on military.com and various service branch publications and websites (eg. Army Times). We are also launching an outreach campaign to college and university writing professors that will ask them to encourage their students who have served overseas to submit their work for publication.
Q: Are you personally profiting from the project? We've been funding things out of our own pockets thus far. Line of Advance has applied for formal 501(c)3 non-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service, and has in-place fully transparent accounting practices, disclosure policies and conflict-of-interest bylaws.
