When our online server crashed for several harrowing hours in February, we got a glimpse of a world without Guernica, and we didn’t like what we saw. There was a darkness (or, more specifically, a “down for maintenance” message) where uncompromising reportage, first-person narrative, and the best in established and emerging fiction, poetry and visual art could once be found. And as staff members traded distressed emails into the early hours of the morning, and our webmaster scrambled to get things back up and running, we were reminded of the extraordinary lengths to which members of Guernica community will go and have gone to keep the magazine alive. In was a moment in which we recognized the remarkable scope of our all-volunteer organization, its 33 staff members and their dedication, as a true labor of love.
Essential were our readers, whose support enabled those working behind the scenes, and without which we might never have been revived. In the spirit of this call to arms, we thank you, and ask that you continue to make Guernica a singular literary presence, on the internet and in the world.
–George Saunders
Please help Guernica sustain that intensity by making a tax-deductible donation of any size. Any amount, be it $5, $55, or $500, helps ensure that none of us will ever face a world without Guernica (shudder) again. We can accomplish a lot with love, but can’t avoid the costs of web hosting and rent, amongst other costs. There are many ways to support in addition to giving: you can buy books from our Amazon.com Affiliates, and share our content with friends and family. Here are a few things that support from our readers have helped accomplish just since the New Year:
- Granta included Guernica’s London Bureau Chief Kamila Shamsie in their Best of Young British Novelists 4 list
- Work by Guernica contributors and translators appeared in all three genre categories of the Best of the Net 2012 anthology: “In Defense of Dancing” by Ocean Vuong (poetry), “Voice” by Melih Cevdet Anday, translated by Sidney Wade and Efe Murad (poetry), “Casino” by Alix Ohlin (fiction), and “Death in a Box” by Scott Johnson (nonfiction)
- Rafal Milach, featured in Guernica for his haunting portraits of Russia, recently won Best Photo Book of the Year by Pictures of the Year International
While your support will help us continue to make the Guernica you already love, it will also help further the tremendous growth we’ve experienced in the past few months. We’re paying rent for a brand new, cozy office. We’ve partnered with PEN American Center for a panel on gender and confessional writing during their upcoming World Voices Festival, and with the 92Y for a program of coordinated interviews and events. And this year, Guernica was nominated for an Utne Media Award for Best Social/Cultural Coverage, among such publications as TomDispatch, The New Inquiry, The Rumpus, and Orion.
In the nine years that we’ve been publishing Guernica for free, we’re thrilled to be where we are now, and are excited to translate this success into improved infrastructure for the magazine that will sustain this growth. Guernica has big plans for the rest of 2013 and beyond, and your support will be crucial as we invest in the next writers and artists who will challenge, inspire, and provoke you. If you think we’re moving in the right direction and want to make sure we get there, please show us. Thank you in advance for your contribution and for your friendship.
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