Letter From The Staff – May 2020
Dear readers,
Welcome to Paper Dragon, an online literary journal curated and edited by students in the Drexel University MFA program, currently in its inaugural cohort. We are excited to bring you the best in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art highlighting diverse communities and their intersections.
The name Paper Dragon reflects a philosophy of conscientious literary journalism. This magazine launches at a time when incendiary rhetoric is often leveled, publicly and privately, without thought or precision. News and social media feeds are filled with enkindling provocations and fiery responses. The concept of the paper dragon reminds us that to scorch the world around us is to burn our environments, our selves. As such, we’ve made a commitment to publishing literature and art that reflects and embraces the world around us, imperfections and all, with a focus on outreach, social justice, and community-building.
Our editorial team is building relationships in their unique communities to create an ongoing dialogue through the Paper Dragon. We will also be soliciting content of exceptional quality from general submissions, works that typify our standards on the national or global scale. Our team will curate this content to converge on a theme. For our first issue this fall, the theme is a play on the idea of R&R. As our launch coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic, our R&R stands not for “Rest & Relaxation,” but “Recovery & Resilience,” a leitmotif of our community’s grit and ability to bounce back from hardship.
We look forward to presenting new voices and diverse content in a format unlike any other. Please join us here regularly to celebrate the stories being told, and in Fall 2020 for our first official issue.
Sincerely,
Paper Dragon staff