{"id":1399,"date":"2019-12-12T16:34:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T21:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2019-12-12T16:34:06","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T21:34:06","slug":"even-heretics-need-stakes-financial-crisis-and-reader-outreach-by-heresies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/dittmar\/even-heretics-need-stakes-financial-crisis-and-reader-outreach-by-heresies\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEven Heretics need stakes\u201d: Financial Crisis and Reader Outreach by Heresies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 1960\u2019s through the mid 1970\u2019s, women started a wave of small press feminist publications across the United States. Dedicated to radical ideas and very mission-driven, many of these periodicals tried to enact social change through publishing women\u2019s literature and literary theory. However, the relatively small readership of these publications put them on financially unstable ground. Because of this, the economic recession of the late 1970\u2019s hit small feminist presses particularly hard. In this period, the first pages of Quest<\/i>, Conditions<\/i>, Heresies<\/i>, and other feminist publications came to be dominated by editorial statements asking their readers to help them stay afloat by subscribing and paying higher cover prices. These letters from the editors (and often accompanying reader responses) expanded on the practices of community-building and transparency that already characterized the feminist press.<\/p>\n

\"Cover

Cover of Heresies’ Inaugural Issue, 1976<\/p><\/div>\n

Started in 1976, Heresies<\/i> was a relative latecomer to Second Wave periodicals, but it came into the world fully formed. In the first issue, the original collective of twenty-one women outlined how each issue would bring together a new editorial group of several volunteers to curate content under a specific theme. Certain hallmarks of the magazine, like the mission statement, would remain unchanged issue to issue, giving Heresies<\/i> a sense of continuity, but this large, non-hierarchical rotating staff of volunteer editors would keep the magazine from relying too much on any one woman. Even the core collective that chose themes and made long-term decisions for the magazine was flexible; between issues 1 and 2, it acquired three new members, and by 1980, nine women were full members of the collective, while another eighteen were associate members (Heresies<\/em> vol. 1, no. 1; vol. 1, no. 2; vol. 3, no. 1). The core collective and rotating editorial groups kept themselves accountable both by accepting letters from readers and holding open evaluation meetings after each issue was released to gather feedback. The location, date, and time of these meetings would be published in the magazine itself. In this way, the many editors of Heresies<\/i> built a relationship with their readers from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\"A

Note from the Editorial Collective, 1980<\/p><\/div>\n

Heresie<\/i>s<\/i>\u2019 relationship with its readers was crucial when in 1980, the magazine found itself in a financial crisis. In the first pages of issue 9, the Heresies<\/i> collective published a note declaring in boldface letters, \u201cHELP!\u201d (Heresies<\/em> vol. 3, no. 1). In it they explained, \u201cEvery publication in this country dedicated to social change is underfinanced,\u201d and they were no exception despite selling out of their 6000 copy printing runs every issue and receiving annual grants from the New York State Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Starting with issue 9, they would be pushing their print run to 8000, raising their price per issue from $3.00 to $4.25, and lowering their page count from 128 pages to 96 while imploring readers to subscribe to avoid the 40% and 50% cuts that bookstores and distributors took. By taking all of these actions simultaneously, Heresies<\/i> seemed to be able to right itself before getting too far off course and emerge from this period without too much trouble, as they did not publish another similar note in the next five years (HERESIES issues 9-18).<\/p>\n

It is worth asking why and how Heresies<\/i> managed to navigate the gauntlet of the late 70\u2019s and early 80\u2019s relatively unscathed while other small magazines either folded or underwent transformations to stay afloat. Did their unique editorial structure make a difference? Were they able to build a supportive community of readers in a way other magazines could not? Were their larger printing runs the major difference maker? Or was it the government grants? It\u2019s impossible to know without taking an in-depth look at Heresies<\/i>\u2019 peers during the same time.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

\u201cIntroduction: The Movement that Changed a Nation\u201d The American Women\u2019s Movement, 1945-2000. 33-43.<\/p>\n

Heresies: A Feminist Publications of Art & Politics.<\/i> vol . 1, issue 1, Heresies Collective, 1976.<\/p>\n

Heresies: A Feminist Publications of Art & Politics.<\/i> vol . 1, issue 2, Heresies Collective, 1976.<\/p>\n

Heresies: A Feminist Publications of Art & Politics.<\/i> vol . 3, issue 1, Heresies Collective, 1980.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late 1960\u2019s through the mid 1970\u2019s, women started a wave of small press feminist publications across the United States. Dedicated to radical ideas and very mission-driven, many of these periodicals tried to enact social change through publishing women\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dittmar"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}