Archipelago Information

For the last year, Archipelago has been on hiatus. We needed a rest; we needed to reassess what Archipelago stood for and hoped to accomplish; we were ready to try something new. We asked, Can Archipelago learn to stand on its own? We thought: we need a board, and regular funding, and salaries, and a staff. Oh how furiously we mused, and read, and daydreamed, and wrote proposals. After all that, we don't yet know whether Archipelago will have a future. But if it is to have one, we realized, we had to learn some hard new facts. Then we reminded ourselves of old ways of thinking, about the good, the true, the beautiful. We recalled where we came from and what we stood for. Why Does This Matter? Archipelago has been published on the World Wide Web since March 1997. I envisioned it as a kind of threshold between traditional print journals and the Web, bringing literary and (even) print values to the digital media. Serious publishing had changed, even, it seemed, become endangered, with the conglomeration of media corporations, their fear of the Internet, and the corrosive effects of commercial mass entertainment on the old high and popular cultures, all of these combining in darkling ways to devalue whatever "literary publishing" was thought to be. This journal's intention was to offer works of literature, the arts, and opinion to a cosmopolitan readership which, often, had been formed in or influenced by more than one culture or society. Did such people exist, and did they actually look for good writing on the Web? I thought so; I was pretty certain I wasn't alone. Archipelago opened with an idea, a little money, some very good writers, and no publicity. By last summer, 17,000-19,000 of you, 'unique visitors,' pointed your browsers here every month. About three-fourths of you were located in North America; the rest, around the world: very nice for a journal that did its best to be international in its outlook. Archipelago was fortunate, having had just enough financial backing, in enjoying a remarkable, ...