What Would You Like to See from Restful?
What would you like to see from Restful?
Myself, I’ve been thinking that, as my interests and capacities grow and change, Restful will most likely become an avenue for writing and art workshops, producing, among other things, anthologies and individual publications. (Yes, I remember that I announced last year—albeit prematurely—that Restful is now a publishing house. That’s not [yet] true.)
What I’m drawn toward is something closer to the poetry development scene I grew up in, in late 2010s London: Apples & Snakes workshops, the Roundhouse poets, collectives like SXSWKS, the Southbank Centre poetry library and its programmes. One thing they had in common was investment in social and communal infrastructure, the kind that sustains writers beyond any one event or one production. Beyond the book launch, the many conversations, encounters, feedback, friendships and meals that made the book possible. Beyond the award-winning poem, the conditions in which the poet keeps writing.
Other models I’m inspired by: independent publishers like Cassava Republic, And Other Stories, Hajar Press, Persephone Books, Indigo Press, Fitzcarraldo Editions for the rigour and distinctiveness of their editorial vision. And the model of academic journal publishing where writers come with their drafts to conference workshops and if there’s enough harmony and depth, the group’s drafts become a journal issue or a book. I love the round-and-round rigour, the mutual development, the group project where everyone is invested, and everyone’s thinking is changed.
In my imagining of the future of Restful, the production is secondary—the artifact. My priorities are reflection, contemplation, and beauty. Much less, if at all, argument. That’s the distinction I want to hold: a literary culture organised not around position-taking, but one organised around attention and accompaniment.
(Note: this is a desire and not a promise. Life is life-ing, eyan le ku any time, but I can name a desire, can’t I?)
What about you?
Reader engagement and feedback in this space has dropped significantly in the past year plus; I know things have changed, but if you’re still here, I’d like to know:
What direction would you like to see Restful take in the coming months/years?
