Until we meet again

Well, that’s it… We’ve published our final piece.

I’ve thought long and hard about what to say when the time to shut down finally rolled around, but now that it’s here, I’m at a loss for words, so I’ll get down to business first.

I’ll be honest… I’m not sure what will happen to the site once our payment date lapses. I’ve been told by WordPress that everything will remain the same, but that our amount of save space will be diminished. Since that may mean our older published pieces will fall away, I encourage anyone with work that disappears to take it elsewhere. Every voice on Fourth & Sycamore is important to us, and we sincerely hope that everything about our site is preserved as much as possible. But five years of publishing adds up to a lot of material, which has to take up space somewhere. So if you currently have work on our site, and at some point that work is no longer visible, you have our blessing to find a new home.

To anyone with submissions still unanswered, we sincerely hope that you will take your work to another journal or publication. The backlog of submissions we received while closed for quarantine was slightly overwhelming, so unfortunately, we will be unable to contact each and every one of you. We highly recommend you consider sending your work to 805 Lit + Art magazine, as their publication is also based in a public library. They were a big inspiration back when our founder, David Nilsen, created F&S. Their format and submission guidelines are a bit different from ours, so please be respectful and make sure your work is something they publish before sending it their way.

If you have any questions about anything I may have forgotten, we encourage you to reach out via our email account, fourthsycamore@gmail.com. Our response may be delayed, but we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of our contributors for putting themselves out there by having the courage to submit their work to us. As a writer, I know how hard that can be. It was wonderful getting to know you, both through your work as well as through our correspondence. I will miss each and every one of you, so feel free to continue to keep me updated on how you’re doing and what’s new in your writing lives. I may not be able to publish your work anymore, but I’d still love to read your writing. So share away!

I’d also like to thank all of our readers for their love and support over the years. F&S would have been nothing without all of you.

My biggest thank you goes out to David Nilsen, our founder and the first editor of Fourth & Sycamore. Thank you for trusting me with your baby… I may have kept it going, but it was your vision and hard work that got it all started. I truly appreciate all of the time you spent teaching me the ropes, then listening when I’d come across a new situation to freak out about. Your support is what inspired me to push through those times when stress and anxiety threatened to overwhelm me. I’m more grateful than you’ll ever know for allowing me this experience.

Until we meet again… keep writing!