Hello World — A (Re)Introduction

Hello, world!

We last introduced ourselves to the Internet with our launch in May 2020. Since then, we’ve waved to new platforms here and there, but it’s about time we introduced ourselves again — a few things have changed since our initial hello. So, hello again. We are Backslash Lit, a webzine and learning community for electronic literature.

This tagline might sound a little different from the last one you heard — last time you checked, we were just an online magazine. This fall, we’ll be changing up our publication schedule to focus on becoming a community.

In May 2020, I launched Backslash initially intending to create a small platform for creative friends to share the occasional funky experiment. Backslash today exceeds this vision in almost every way, but I keep thinking back to one of my primary motives to launch this platform: to learn.

I’ve learned an incredible amount working behind this publication for the past year and a half. I’m so, so grateful to all of you — readers, contributors, editors — for making this platform possible, and would like to invite you all to learn with me.

One of our primary audiences is the online literary community — poets, storytellers, workers of words. But because our magazine doesn’t publish conventional poetry, it is easy for non-coders to look at our website and think this zine is not for you. But Backslash can be for anyone — amateurs, professionals, programmers, and poets alike.

This fall, we are focusing on fostering engagement, bridging the literary arts and creative coding communities, and making our zine more accessible to all. Here’s what we’ll be working on to make that happen:

1. Sharing resources on our website. Not only have we made the typical post-release changes, but we’ve modified our Home and About pages to reflect our pseudo-rebrand. Most notably, we’ve created a Resources page that we will continue to add on to. We’ve updated our Inspo page as well.
2. Launching this blog. We’ll be putting tutorials, prompts, Backslash news, and otherwise on Medium. We’re also open to guest contributions — check out this form to get in touch if you are interested. So far, we don’t have a posting schedule but we hope to update several times per season.
3. Coordinating workshops. We hosted a virtual event in March, and plan to bring those back in October. We’d also love to invite previous contributors to present workshops on a relevant topic of their choice! Fill out this form if you are interested.

Starting next week, we’ll be sharing our Issue 5 spotlights on Instagram and Twitter. If you haven’t seen Issue 5: new Promise() just yet, take some time this weekend to click through it. From GIF verses to 3D-modeled microstories to Figma poems, the pieces featured will blow you away — that’s a promise.

We’ll also be sharing posts with more information on contributing to our blog and future workshops. We aim to offer a stipend to workshop presenters (and potentially contributors in the future!), and will collect donations through Eventbrite and Ko-fi to make this possible. You can support us by donating and sharing out content on our social media platforms, linked below.

Finally, let us know if there is anything you’d like to see from us! You can reach us in the Medium comments or through Instagram, Twitter, and email. Thank you for all your support, and we’re ecstatic to enter this new era of Backslash with you.

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Blog post by C.T. Dinh.