Over the past 60 days, Sixty’s editorial team met to brainstorm and strategize on our organizational structure and our editorial processes. Through weekly Editorial Visioning Meetings, we clarified our publishing priorities and set goals for Sixty’s community-building efforts in order to maintain our integrity towards our mission. Our goal is for this work to bring longevity to Sixty and for our processes and priorities to align with our values as a worker-led organization, while also considering the current climate we are working under.
With all of the above in mind, we came to the following conclusions:
We made an agreement to continue to strengthen some of our most recent editorial efforts such as Sixty Bilingual and Sixty Lit. We also want to strengthen the web of connection to cities and artists working within the Midwest by focusing on locations and genres we haven’t covered as much in the past. Lastly, we plan to focus on archiving the arts and cultural work of our region—both past and present—through conversations with our elders as well as with places and platforms that have shuttered in order to preserve the work they’ve done and to hopefully inspire others to remember and continue their legacies.
During our 60-Day Editorial Pause, we hosted the Midwest Arts Writing Convening at Haymarket House. Sixty gathered alongside other writers, editors, and artists to explore arts writings and publishing at the intersections of archives, community organizing, and advocacy. This was a time to strengthen our current relationship to the cultural ecosystem within the Midwest and a time to strategize ways to make these bonds stronger and lasting under the current conditions that both we and the spaces within our ecosystem are working under. That being said, this was only the beginning.
We are excited to continue strategizing and start putting these plans into practice over this summer and beyond in various forms including public programming, writing, new initiatives and more.
Below is an updated list of Sixty’s publishing priorities and their defining characteristics.
Expand our coverage in Midwest cities
Sixty aims to diversify our coverage in the Midwest by prioritizing arts coverage that focuses on specific locations around the Midwest, particularly cities/places that we have not covered before (or covered very infrequently). Sixty defines the Midwest as: Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the tribal nations of the Midwest region. The writing itself can range in form, subject, language, etc, but we prefer this coverage to be written by folks that are based in these locations and who are embedded within these systems. The goal is to support writing from folks who have their feet on the ground in these art ecosystems, and therefore have a deep understanding of their community.
Bilingual: Expand the languages we publish/translate and our contributor pool
Sixty would like to continue to publish content in languages beyond English. Spanish is the most common language spoken outside of English and the most translated language Sixty has accomplished since launching Sesenta in 2022. (census state language data) We have also expanded to publish other languages based on pitches received during bilingual open calls. So far we have published Oneida, Traditional Chinese, Hindi, Gujarati, French, and Portuguese, and we want to continue to represent the many languages spoken across the Midwest. A total of 74 articles and comix have been published under Sixty Bilingual since relaunching.
Prioritize non-visual art media: music, performance, sound, film, book reviews
Sixty’s current coverage tends to be dominated by visual art. In an effort to diversify the type of art we cover, we are looking for pitches that focus on the arts outside of visual art happening within the Midwest, such as: music, sound, performance (theatre or experimental), film, video art, and literature. This could range from book reviews, interviews with authors, performance reviews, album reviews, interviews with performance artists or musicians, reviews discussing the work of a sound artist, film reviews, a profile on an organization that supports sound artists, and more.
Intergenerational interviews (archiving conversations with our elders)
In an effort to honor and preserve the stories and voices of our elders who helped fortify the Midwestern arts and cultural space, Sixty is prioritizing interviews with the elders in our (art) communities. Sixty aims to help steward these stories through publishing so that these stories do not become lost to history.
Coverage on places/platforms that have shuttered
In the spirit of archiving and preservation, Sixty is prioritizing coverage of arts platforms, publications, galleries, and community organizations that have come and gone. The lifespan of artist-run spaces, DIY initiatives, and arts orgs in general are often short lived and precarious due to factors like funding and capacities. Even if these places are no longer around, we still believe in the importance of documenting and preserving the work that was done in order to honor their importance and impact as well as to ensure that future generations of artists and cultural workers can learn from them and remember.
Sixty Lit
In order to continue to give a platform to the creative literary voices in the Midwest who not only inspire us and our readers, but by sharing their work help us think deeper about our relationship to others and the world around us. Sixty LIT is an editorial body and process specifically designed for writers submitting literary works, including creative nonfiction, memoir, poetry, autotheory, and experimental or lyric essays. Submissions are open to any writer based in the Midwest.
Works we are interested in will—politically, personally, and aesthetically—regard the archives, non canonical and counter canonical art, or an experience as something to be shared intimately and deliberately with a critical audience towards a political, spiritual, or aesthetic transformation.
Photo Essays
In order to continue providing an in-depth look at the intersection of arts, archives, and culture within this political moment in the Midwest, Sixty is prioritizing photo-essays (a collection of images that work together to tell a story or explore a theme) that illuminates the relation between the personal and the political. We are interested in photo essays that provide deeper understanding into the lives of Midwestern artists, archivists, curators, and organizers who activate art for political and liberatory ways.
Have questions? Please email us at writeforsixty@sixtyinchesfromcenter.org.
