The Ebb to Our Flo.
This year marks flo.’s third (!!!) anniversary and we would like to take that time to reflect on what flo. has been for us over those years. When I started flo., alongside Senka and Katrina, I was always so touched that people trusted us with their beautiful words and art. We were just three students with a love of literature and a deep appreciation for the city that raised us. I remember as I held flo. issue 01 for the first time, I felt as though I was handling something delicate and precious, because I knew that that issue was not only my labour of love, but it was just as special to every single writer who believed in our inaugural issue (as well as the incredible Kimberley Eady!). That feeling has never gone away, and flo. continues to make me swell with pride and love for our community with every issue. As we prepare to jump into our issue 07 submission period, there will be a few changes to our production, but the love and care that we pour into flo. will never go away.
Over the past year, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have the support of the Ontario Arts Council to fund our magazine. We were able to increase our contributor payment amounts, host community workshops and have bigger launch events than we previously thought possible! All this was not only thanks to that grant, but also thanks to the community who supported us and believed in our vision for flo. We had big plans for this upcoming year, but unfortunately we will not be receiving any form of funding from provincial grants that we had relied on for the past year. This means that our print issues and our events may have to be smaller, but our love for the Ottawa-Gatineau literary and arts community will continue to grow!
We love flo. and everything it’s done for us as well as the community. We will continue to publish issues to the best of our ability and within the means that we have available to us. We’re not entirely sure what the future holds yet, but we’re eager to see where it takes us. We want to continue to grow and find new ways to gather the community of artists and writers from the Ottawa-Gatineau region as we have done for 3 years now. We have always boasted our free submissions and that will never change. We believe in creating opportunities for all writers in our community and we recognize the barriers that already exist within the realm of art and literature. We will also continue to pay contributors (because we know how difficult it can be to get paid for your work!) and do our best to maintain the rate that we currently pay of $40-160 for print publications to fairly compensate our writers and artists.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us throughout the years and to remind anyone that may be interested that we accept donations through our website. We are run by a team of volunteers so all our donations and sales go directly into the funding the magazine and helping us pay writers and cover operational costs. We understand that this is not feasible for everyone and we want to extend our gratitude to those who have supported, and continue to support us, by submitting to flo., reading flo., and believing in flo. just as much as we do!
As we move forward, we will continue to uplift the voices of our community to the best of our abilities. Thank you for always trusting us with your words and for believing in us over these past three years! We will always be honoured by the support we receive from our community and we will never stop doing our best to make you all proud.
With love,
Erin