Happy Birthday, Blank Spaces: You've Made Me a Believer!

the letter from the editor as featured on page 5 of the September 2018 issue of Blank Spaces

Two years ago, September 2016, I was in my day-job office when the mail-lady delivered the first issue of Blank Spaces. My hands shook as I opened the package, dread coursing through me as I thought of all the people who had pre-ordered the debut edition based on my bold promotion. The night before I had dreamed the issues arrived printed on tissue paper, stapled together haphazardly. Everything was on the line—at least, it felt that way. My reputation, my pride, my future. I had a vision of bringing Canadians together, who, like me, were tired of rejection, tired of the ‘you must be published to get published’ Catch-22, desperate for a place to belong. I pictured a beautiful, glossy piece of art that anyone would be loathe to ignore; something that would be cherished in a collection rather than discarded in a recycling bin.

As I unveiled that inaugural issue, saw the quality, felt the weight of its contents, and the birthing of a dream come true, I knew all my fears had been for not. This thing in my hands—this dream—it had come to fruition, looking nothing like the dream of my nightmares; instead it looked like the dream of my heart.

Now here we are, two years and nine issues later, and to say I’m proud doesn’t really capture what I am feeling. I am gushing with gratitude, continually humbled by the writers and artists who are trusting my team and I with their creations, and I’m ferociously determined to keep this little project chugging along.

You’ve made a believer out of me, all you who have contributed and purchased over the last two years, and I am so pleased to call you part of the Blank Spaces family.

Alanna Rusnak, Editor-in-Chief