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. I had spent the last few months in a state of extreme stress, managing and leading and troubleshooting every aspect of the event.

Before we had began the serious planning of the event, we were considering our values and the future of TPC. The reading period in particular brought up a lot of questions around the nature of our journal, the motivation behind this decision to launch a journal, the implications of responsibility, the legacy we want to cultivate, how to best make editorial decisions, how to nurture our poets, encourage them to submit, but not expect to be published just because they join workshops. We also did’t want to burn ourselves out. We went back and forth on so many points, always returning to the reassurance that we could revisit these decisions in the future if we didn't have answers now. We relied on gut and instinct and what felt right.

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 read blind. We had video calls, endless conversations, sent voice notes, and shared spreadsheets, files, docs, fears, and hopes.

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 receive poems, we began thinking about the venue and what kind of event we wanted.