On The Seawall is a community gallery for new writing and commentary during a time of emergency. (There always is, and there always has been, an emergency.) We now publish on a bimonthly schedule, and we read submissions throughout the year.
I launched On The Seawall in 2007 as a site for my personal page and occasional comment, but as my involvement with commentary grew along with the size of the site’s readership, On The Seawall soon evolved into a regularly refreshed book review site. In the spring of 2018, as the old and unfixable code underlying the site began to break down, I considered three options: shut it down, rebuild On The Seawall as it stands, or apply the resource and direct the site’s audience to a broader purpose. After discussing the potential with my friends, I decided to relaunch On The Seawall to accommodate diverse commentary, eclectic writing across genres, translations, and art. In particular, the site presents and discusses poetry, lyrical and speculative fiction, literature in translation, and cultural expression via essays and reviews.
We think of On The Seawall as a “gallery” — a location in the neighborhood, a place where we display our work for our community, where everyone is welcome to create and to witness the work. We are living in a time of emergency during which our art may act as performances of intervention and refuge. Back in 2007, I named this site On The Seawall for a reason — because there always is an emergency, communal and/or personal, requiring a stay against the flood.
Nancy Naomi Carlson is our Translations Editor. Translations of prose and poetry, and reviews of translated titles, are a signature of On The Seawall.
Joining us in our efforts are several contributing editors:
Daisy Fried, Tarfia Faizullah, Dean Rader, Kyle Dargan, Elaine Sexton, Mark Athitakis, Lisa Russ Spaar, Rigoberto González, Andrew Epstein, Victoria Chang, Kimberly Grey, Philip Metres, Laura Marris, David Roderick, Airea Matthews, Jonathan Farmer, Michael Lindgren, David Varno, Will Brewbaker, Rochelle Spencer, Bailey Trela, Sarah Neilson, Zach Graham, Calista McRae, Tyler Mills, Zach Savich, Bridget Quinn, Hamilton Cain, and Benjamin Woodard.
— Ron Slate
