Background
Long Story, Short Journal was established in 2012 as a labour of love. Founding Editor Jennifer Matthews wanted to create a home for longer short stories, 4000 words or more, which often had difficulty being placed in traditional journals in Ireland fiction submissions are often limited to 2000 or 3000 words. Why is size so important? While smaller short stories can be satisfying reads, they're also limited in the scope of what they can accomplish. Rarely do you see a professionally published collection of short stories where every piece is so diminutive--so where is a budding writer to hone her skills if professional literary journals won't accept longer work?
The current funding situation
From the beginning the Founding Editor has been happy to fund the webhosting and templates from her own pocket, in the hopes that funding applications might help out eventually with author payments, etc. A modest 'tip jar' was added to the site, but donations are rare. Funding applications with government arts agencies have also similarly been unsuccessful, despite the unique resource this journal provides. And so, writers and artists continue to generously contribute their work despite lack of funding for payment.
How will the money raised be used?
Here's the plan: this funding drive hopes to raise enough to pay each writer from 2012 through 2017 a modest sum. After that, funds raised will supply a modest gift to our tireless volunteers who have kept this journal afloat over the years--including our proofreader and our two guest editors for 2017. They have generously donated huge amounts of their own time to others, with no expectation of recompense (and at the expense of their own time to write).
(Founding Editor/ Editor-in-Chief, Jennifer Matthews, will NOT be on the receiving end of any payment--this remains her labour of love; and this journal remains a not-for-profit enterprise.)
The remainder of the money raised will go towards paying the crowdfunding fees.
How you can help
For those who have a bit of extra cash to send our way, among our thank you offers in this campaign is Sunset Drinking the Black Ocean, a unique fiction anthology we've compiled from selected past, present and future contributors to Long Story, Short Journal. The anthology is 100+ pages of very short forms including flash fiction, portraits, short shorts and prose poems--from start to finish a quirky and addictive read!
We of all organisations know that cash contributions are not always easy to make. It's why we'd like to keep our journal subscription-free. If you're a lover of literature, you can help us by sharing this campaign or sharing a favourite story from Long Story, Short Journal on social media! Retweets and Facebook shares for your bookish friends are always warmly welcome. If you'd like to be added to our newsletter to be notified when new stories are published, send us an email to longstoryshortjournal(AT)gmail.com