Waves Anthology Notice
Dear Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices Contributors,
In 2017, with our pledge to make real and sustain the waves created by the radical connections between women writers and artists, AROHO changed course to expand our inclusivity online. On a shoestring, this intention has shaped us into a resilient, web-based collective whose previous focus on exclusive art competitions for women has been honed to the pearl of curating the global presence of creative women.
We find ourselves again in a pivotal moment where our readiness and the needs and receptiveness of the world converge. Today’s world has changed so drastically that all we know is that we do not know. In stark contrast, what we know about AROHO is cause for celebration. While what we need is so much, we also have so much. Thousands of women from Albania to Zimbabwe have signed onto our cause. In recent weeks we have all learned how to balance the risks and practicalities of physical presence with our need for connection. Virtual connection is real. For us, this moment has been twenty years in the making.
What began as the intent to publish a record of the 2015 Waves Discussion Series gathering, our Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices anthology has become an expression of AROHO’s organic transformation. Our deep commitment to question our assumptions and be true in every aspect to who we are and what we do, led to an open invitation to creative women everywhere to further submit to this collective work. This open call was received by an editor who sat on the floor with thousands of pages which “shaped themselves” over the course of several years into an elaborate volume encompassing the breadth of creative women.
The Waves Anthology is the building block upon which our room stands. As we continue to live fully our ethos — releasing ourselves from traditional constructs and external constraints instead for the promise of inclusion, presence, and a new way — we publicly embrace and claim who we are and what we do as creative women without explanation or further delay. While making room for all future possibilities — including seeing our work also in print — and rather than keeping Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices locked away until publishing trends deem it timely and worthy, we release the anthology and ourselves from the assumption that there is only one destination for distinguished arts and letters.
Excerpts from the anthology will find life alongside new work in each WAVES digital publication, and like a steadily building surge, the radiant, assembled work of Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices will express itself on the AROHO website as a guided experience. Declared canon-worthy on the leading Anthology page — featuring cover art, dedication, epigraphs, Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Orlando is the Story of a Writer,” Diane Gilliam’s Editor’s Note, and nine sections — each woman’s piece, as soon as possible, will appear as an individual post containing her contributor bio.
We pause to remind ourselves that the three-hundred voices of the anthology are as audacious as our commitment to present them. This vast effort is self-funded with more pro-bono than paid hours compassionately contributed by the kindred creative sisters of AROHO. Given this reality, we are unable to forecast the speed with which any one woman’s work will appear or speculate as to when it will be complete.
How will she know when her work is posted? By returning often. Randomly, across the anthology’s nine thematic sections, individual works will be posted. We resist the notion of a dusty, hefty book on the shelf to choose a creative practice of engagement. The scope of our narrative and vision is such that there is always nourishment, illumination, and surprise waiting. We invite you to return often to these emerging virtual pages promising they will not disappoint.
Original submission applications will soon be open for bio editing. If you intend now or intended at any time in the past to withdraw your piece from the anthology, immediately ensure that you have withdrawn it in your Submittable account. For more, refer to FAQ, “what does publishing mean to AROHO” and “what is the difference between Waves and WAVES.”
Today, by uniting AROHO’s confluence of women’s voices with the expanding presence & engagement with women around the world, we reclaim and imagine our force so that it may be received by us, as our offerings form an aqueduct to our longings and triumphs. This union, as with all AROHO’s big moments, is filled with heart and courage.
Our room. Our work. Our way.
The women of AROHO
