I started Kindling because I felt very lost.
In John Green's Looking for Alaska, a character proclaims that "at some time or another we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze."
I was feeling anxious about my "future," whatever that means, caught up in both how restricted I felt and how overwhelmingly free I was. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar provided the perfect metaphor - like Ester, I was standing at the base of a fig tree, marveling at my endless possible futures, and seeing them rot as I nervously refused to choose just one.
One restless night I turned to an old journal to make sense of my circling thoughts, and came to the conclusion that one of the most important things to me in life was to write, and to enjoy the writing of others. Beyond that, I wanted to be able to promote good writing, to take the words and thoughts and feelings of talented people and share them as widely as possible. One way to accomplish this, which I had had in the back of my mind for at least a year, was to start a literary website. The kind of place that would publish personal stories, show the ways that culture shapes us, and find the value and importance in the everyday.
So I began making plans for what would eventually become Kindling. It's a place to publish my own writing (as though I don't already have plenty of places to do that), but more importantly, a place to showcase the writing of others. The only times my work has been published by other people, it was small, newer publications that appreciated my writing. I want to offer that to other people - to create a site where writers new and experienced can be valued, where people who care about writing and stories and the human experience can come together to celebrate those things in many different forms. I want the work on this website to be a place for readers to both find themselves, and understand new perspectives.
If this sounds like the kind of place you want to hang out on the Internet, then welcome. Make yourself comfortable, look around. Comment your appreciation on posts that you like - nothing makes a writer happier. Or, if you want to contribute, head over to the Submissions page. I'm so grateful that you're here, and I look forward to navigating this maze together.
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