When it comes to literary journals, North Carolina has an embarrassment of riches. Each publication offers a different point of view, a different aesthetic, and chases different aims, yet each and every one strives for, and largely maintains, widely recognized standards of excellence.
Founded in 2015, Change Seven is a recent addition to the literary chorus: a free, splashy, online-only literary journal that publishes issues twice each year while offering regular content during the “off months.” The focus here is on language. From stories to poems, essays to videos, anything published by this All-Star lineup of editors greets the world as a “highly burnished object of artistry” that takes risks—that, in short, matters.
Past contributors to issues include Valerie Nieman, NCWN Trustee Jan B. Parker, Gary V. Powell, Barbara Presnell, NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern, Jacinta V. White, and more.
Between issues, Change Seven offers interviews, essays, and multimedia. Regular columnists include longtime friends of the Network Joseph R. Mills and Susan Woodring, as well as Kelly Davio and others. Regular contributors include Jody Hobbs Hessler, Kristina Moriconi, Charlie Nickles, and more.
The way issues are archived on the website is not necessarily intuitive or easy to find, but if you click here (or go to the homepage) and scroll down below the signature line of founding editor and current editor-in-chief Sheryl Monks, you’ll find links to each issue. From here, you can navigate back issues and enjoy hours of reading.
While issues are free (supported by ads), Change Seven welcomes donations.
While they’ve always accepted interviews, essays, and reviews year-round, they’ve recently begun accepting fiction, poetry, and nonfiction submissions year-round as well. Poets, submit up to five poems. Writers of prose, submit up to 1,200 words (flash); 5,000 words (short stories and creative nonfiction); completed interviews up to 2,000 words; and book reviews up to 1,250 words.
Future plans include an amped-up blog, perhaps a more regular issue publication schedule, and “a new feature profiling Change Artists & Change Agents.”
In the meantime, they do a nice job of sharing news from around the literary cosmos through their various social media feeds.
Visit Change Seven online at www.changesevenmag.com. They are also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.