As we approach our two-month anniversary here at Manqué, we’re thinking a lot about growing. Not just in the sense of expanding readership (although we certainly think about that), but also in the sense of (dare I say) mindfully curating stories, essays, reviews, and visual art that fit our key ethos. Namely, that means focusing on ideas and pieces that make us feel like something worth saying has been said, regardless (or in spite) of whether other gatekeeping institutions might sniff their noses at it.
That, along with the fact that greenery never seems to stop expanding during this time of year, is why our first themed month is “Growing.” What kinds of things grow, you ask? Gardens, of course. But so do feelings — both positive and not-so-positive, as well as families, communities, bodies, neighborhoods, and piles of laundry. Growing is neither a net positive nor a net negative. Sometimes it is stressful, sometimes it is worth celebrating, but it is always a process, and it hardly ever goes as imagined.
So, perhaps in the interest of humbling ourselves, that is what we’ll be focusing on this month. Every single piece we share may not neatly fit under our “themes” going forward, but we hope that the concept will provide some sort of guiding light and that it will also provoke conversation — among our creators and our readers, alike. We’ll see where we’re at come the end of July. All we can say for certain is that we will be different than we were today.
Welcome to Growing month at Manqué.
We began without any seed money and rely on reader support to fund our operations. This includes costs like managing our website, hosting our podcast, as well as our mission to begin paying contributors.
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