Journal of the Plague Years Magazine

Journal of the Plague Years started in 2020 as crisis response. The pandemic waned but did not disappear. The other plague lost the election. We thought we could relax, and we did for a while, publishing high-quality fiction and essays but keeping an eye on the news.

Now we're expanding to meet a deepening crisis and we need your support. While the mainstream media weakens, independent media becomes more important. With that greater role comes greater responsibility. We're working with veteran and highly decorated writers like Marc Cooper, David Weir, and others, to provide readers with a context for the historical moment we're facing.

We recently set up a Substack. Help us expand into podcasting and grow our audience. We need to set up a line of merchandise so we can diversify our revenue streams. We would like to pay ourselves, at least now and then.

Our credo: We don't believe political writing has to be second rate, and we never let our dogma run over our karma. We won't recite received wisdom but always look for the drivers behind change. We aren't contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. We use our bullshit detectors.

If you aren't familiar with the magazine, we mash up high-quality explanatory journalism with literary nonfiction. We believe we need to speak to both the head and the heart. This isn't '70s New Journalism. It's smart political coverage, deep dives into how we got where we are, essays that trace historical parallels to the time we're living in, memoir, lyric essay, satire, visual narrative (OK, memes, occasionally) and curation with real sensibility. Many articles are accompanied by expertly (and sometimes humorously) curated Spotify playlists. Our writers are an august lot, including Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award-winning novelist Steve Erickson, Blanche McCrary Boyd, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoirist Mikal Gilmore, Deanne Stillman and many others.

Sometimes we're short, sometimes we're long, but you can always read us on your phone.

Hope you'll contribute what you can.

We'll list your name on our Supporters page unless you don't want us to. To those who donated before, thank you! Check out the https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/supporters and tell us If we've missed anything. If you'd prefer not to be listed, please let us know.

Thank you all so much.

Susan Zakin and Brian Cullman, editors