Jennifer Taylor, co-founding fiction editor, on damselfly press

Last year, our biggest challenge at damselfly press was to rapidly become a well-known journal so that the first issue wouldn’t be filled with anecdotes from the editors—something, anything, just to fill up the blank space. It seemed to be a novice’s idea to try and break into the crowded literary world where on-line journals thrive and fold on a daily basis.

We had spent three months establishing the concept for the journal, mission statement, guidelines, website design, and logo. We also spent a massive amount of time on the phone since the three of us are in different cities. I remember those marathon phone sessions as exhilarating. We were beginning something with possibility. It almost felt like the first day of high school, or the first time I set out in my car at sixteen all by myself.

The day our first call for submissions went out, I must’ve checked my e-mail box at least twenty times before the morning was over. If my memory is correct, I received the first fictional submission that afternoon. I wanted to read it right away and send an e-mail thanking the good woman who had written it but refrained. Over the course of the next several weeks I received over twenty submissions for the first issue. What surprised me were the number of stories and poems filled with gratuitous violence.

With that said, we receive high quality work that surpasses what we had hoped for in the beginning. We are now reading for our third issue. I still check on the number of submissions that are sent my way but not every day. We still have conference calls to check in with each other and discuss submissions. Our editing style is collaborative, and that seems to serve us well. We receive e-mails from women telling us how much they’ve enjoyed our first two issues, and they appreciate the time and effort we’ve put into the journal. And that makes all of the phone calls and worrying worth it.

Our website is: http://www.damselflypress.net.