About Us
The purpose of Sweet Lit, from its inception in a small apartment in Columbus, Ohio, was to: 1) recognize the ever-changing nature of the written word in an evolving literary landscape; 2) create a simple and readable digital platform for dialogic exchanges between poetry, short creative nonfiction, and graphic pieces; 3) publish diverse voices from all over the country and world; 4) foster and support emerging writers of any age from various social and economic backgrounds; 5) maintain lasting relationships with the writers Sweet Lit has published.
Simply, we wanted to produce a magazine that was inclusive rather than exclusive, that championed the work of writers of marginalized communities, and that facilitated a space for poems and essays and the intersection of these two genres.
We observed too many magazines that cultivated elitism by running ads of the names of famous writers they rejected or claiming to publish “the best” of American letters. This dismisses the hard work of the writer and seeks to obliterate community by creating false hierarchies. This elitism is a form of editorial hubris that dictates an undebatable stance on what is good and what is bad. Sweet Lit strives to curate a journal that opens the doors wide. Sweet Lit looks forward to the possibilities of the word and the community the word can create for all of us.
Sweet Lit does not subscribe to one aesthetic. Because our diverse staff are working writers with various backgrounds and styles, the magazine is a representation of all these varied voices. The end product is an eclectic amalgam of essays and poems and comics and digital art.
Sweet Lit still adheres to art that is pleasurable to read and pleasure-inducing. This is from Sweet’s original Mission Statement: “Donald Hall begins his wonderful essay, ‘The Unsayable Said’ by observing, ‘Poems are pleasure first, bodily pleasure, a deliciousness of the senses’ and goes on to talk about how poems are ‘rich in the mouth’ and claims that ‘we read with our mouths that chew on vowel and consonant.’
…Beautifully written prose does this, too. Syntax is everything in the hands of a skilled writer. How something is written—the way the words are put together—is, in fact, what it means. Too often in the mainstream media, the label “nonfiction” implies that the facts are more important than the art. But at Sweet Lit we think creative nonfiction must be held to the same standards as the other literary genres. In short, it must taste good, not merely be good for us.”
Who Reads Sweet Lit?
It’s too easy to say Sweet Lit’s audience is everyone. Good literature is for everyone. But we live in a world of inequity. The idea that if you work hard enough you will attain whatever you want is a fiction, spoken from a point of privilege. The truth is people work hard and don’t achieve. People work hard and fail. The truth is the people in this country are not on a level playing field. One reason Sweet Lit remains free to access is so that, in our small way, we can avoid adding to the boundaries that keep diverse people from literature.
So, who is our audience?
We hope to draw in the seekers, the readers looking to learn, to see the world afresh. We hope to reach those who read not merely for professional necessity, but to enlarge the self. We hope to attract readers looking for counter-narratives to what our culture is putting out–-readers willing to question, to be vulnerable, to look at the microcosm instead of the macro. The world is uncertain. At Sweet Lit, we’re exploring uncertainty together.
