I spent the day after the reading in tears, in a state of excitement and disbelief. I took almost no videos or photos - I was still in awe. We did it. We fucking did it. People haven't understood why I'm so surprised. They kept saying "but, of course, Leora" and "we knew it would be a success," but I didn't know. I spent the last few months in a state of extreme stress, managing and leading and troubleshooting every aspect of the event (or at least I thought I had every aspect under control. Spoiler: I didn't).

I kept reminding myself and the team that the first time we do this, it's going to be hard, and we're going to make mistakes and do some things the silly way. "Anything after this is gonna be so much easier, and we're gonna be much smarter," I'd say. "Let's just get through this and reconvene afterwards to check in and see where we can improve."

We were smart to start planning early. We made the decision in June to launch our journal in October and have our reading coincide with that launch. We settled on October 19th because it was the only free Saturday available that month. We decided we'd invite folks to submit to both reading and journal, or either, and it would be the same submission period. We opened submissions for August and while we were waiting to get poems, we began thinking about our venue and what kind of event we wanted.

We spent September combing through the poems in long marathon editorial meetings, deciding what would work in the journal, what we wanted for the reading, how to navigate being a community celebrating our poets while also hosting a journal that would have presence. We had video calls, endless conversations, sent voice notes, and shared spreadsheets, files, docs, fears, and hopes.

Am I ever going to get to what happens on the night of the reading?