It's a relay, not a sprint

Reposted from The Rumpus Newsletter

Before I get to Alyson’s request below, just a few words from me about The Rumpus and my time there.

Almost everyone I’ve met and gotten to know in the literary world in the last 15 years I met because of The Rumpus. I started there when blogs were still the dominant form of online discourse about poetry—my initial gig was to write a weekly roundup column of what was happening in the posts and comment sections—and that quickly progressed into writing and editing book reviews and then to curating the National Poetry Month series and running the poetry book club. Back when I went to AWP, my name tag always had The Rumpus in the organization spot instead of the university where I taught. It’s been the biggest part of my professional identity for almost as long as I’ve had one.

The Rumpus has had some financial ups and downs over the years, with the ups never really being that far up. It’s always been tight financially because there’s no institutional support and no big donor behind the scenes. The people who make it happen do it because they love the site and the work and want it to continue to exist.

And while money is always a problem for any independent media outlet, it’s especially one for The Rumpus right now because the people who do the most work for it are still digging out from Hurricane Helene. The Rumpus is headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina. I’m going to let Alyson tell you more about that part of things.

I don’t usually do this kind of thing in my newsletters, but this situation calls for an exception. Please forward this message to people you know who might be willing to help, and if you can afford it, please either become a supporting member of The Rumpus or make a donation to help the site recover and keep going into the future. Links for those options are in the post below, reprinted from The Rumpus Newsletter with permission.

Thanks.

[Publisher's note: Asheville, NC]

Dear Readers,

We're slowly moving from crisis to recovery mode here in Asheville, NC. Despite facing the largest natural disaster this area has experienced in at least 100 years, The Rumpus once again published original work 5 days this week. This is thanks to our wonderful volunteer team who are based in Asheville and all over the US.

Some folks are beginning to see water come from their taps. It's not safe to drink yet, but the promise of a hot shower soon is incredible after 21 days of nothing. 1800+ water pipes were decimated in our area because of Hurricane Helene, which dumped over 30 inches of water on Western NC and caused overwhelming flooding.

This week I spent 3 hours at a FEMA center and heard a depressing stat that 40% of independent businesses do NOT survive natural disasters like the one we experienced here. I also talked with the Small Business Association, which (as reported by The NY Times and others yesterday) is currently out of funds.

I'm seeing so much need here that I'm trying to volunteer regularly to help my community, while also trying to figure out how to deal with my own personal financial loss and how that will affect The Rumpus's future. I work two other jobs to subsidize the magazine and have yet to pay myself in the past 3 years for the 30+ hours/week I work on the magazine. Things were getting better—we redesigned the website last year; we raised funds for better contributor pay this year; we're slowly growing our Membership base; and we became fiscally sponsored so we could begin receiving tax-deductible donations. However, this crisis is not something anyone planned for and has created a jarring setback.

Wednesday, I showed up to help remove hundreds (thousands?!) of buckets of mud and debris from a once beautiful artist collective space in downtown Marshall, NC. The organizers reminded us that this effort is a relay, not a sprint. We need to be able to hand off things that we can no longer carry. We need to be able to rely on others to help us move forward when we're overwhelmed and have to take a break.

So here I am (again) asking if you'll help us during a time where it feels impossible to be thoughtful about the future. Can you donate? Can you become a Member? Can you write a note (or forward this one) to someone who might be able to help? Do you know a lit organization who can't donate, but who might want to run ads with us? There's currently a ~$22,000 gap between the funds the magazine has now and the amount we need to raise by Dec. 31.

I need to pass the baton for a minute to help us get past this stage and (hopefully) onto the next.

With appreciation,
Alyson Sinclair, Publisher/Owner, The Rumpus

DONATE to help The Rumpus recover & continue

[pictured above: Alyson Sinclair, Publisher on volunteer clean up duty for an artist collective space in NC]