In Print: Vol. 2

A note from Editor-in-Chief Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice

Dear Reader,

When we launched our very first print issue last year, we weren’t sure what to expect. At a time when many magazines are shuttering or transitioning to an online-only model, starting a print offshoot of Split Lip felt like a reckless act—one that could spectacularly backfire.

Over this last year I began to think of literary magazines like homes. We have all the types—apartments and townhomes, five-floor walk-ups and mansions overlooking the ninth hole. These homes line our streets and form our literary neighborhoods. They provide comfort in uncertain times, and our literary community is tasked with one responsibility: keep the lights on. If we don’t care for our homes, if we fail to provide maintenance or modernize with the times, deterioration is inevitable.

Much of the work you’ll see in Split Lip 2 is about the idea of home, both the physical one that provides a roof and a bed and the one we find within our own bodies. Like a home requiring constant upkeep, our bodies can both nurture and betray.

With this issue, featuring selections from our print issue, we are inviting you, strangers and friends, into our house. Take your shoes off, and don’t mind us standing awkwardly in the foyer. We have a story to tell. We want you to stay for dinner.

To put it another way, we’re thinking of Split Lip 2 like an investment.

Maybe it’s reckless to say we believe in the future of literary magazines, to say all words matter and all bodies matter, to say our stories matter even as the world weathers one disaster after another and the economics of producing art are more precarious than ever before. But we think it’s the opposite. We think it’s responsible.

Should you wish to read Split Lip 2 in its entirety, please consider purchasing a copy here.

With love,

KAR