With our roots in the Mormon stronghold of Provo, Utah, peculiar began as a way to recognize the creative talents of the often-overlooked queer community within Utah’s unique culture. The reception we’ve found for this journal here in Utah has touched our hearts. Over these few years, we’ve seen how important it is to help queer individuals to feel their voices are heard, to see their talent recognized, and to have a chance to come together with other creative minds in their community. We wouldn’t trade any of the long nights or stress it took to publish each issue for anything else. It’s all been worth it.

As the journal has grown over the past few years—and our staff has begun setting roots nationwide—we’ve realized that a lot of what peculiar seeks to embody and shine a light on is found everywhere. So, as we move forward, we’ve decided to broaden the scope of peculiar to include queer voices from anywhere and everywhere. No matter how far you are or how quietly you whisper, know that we hear you.

But we still don’t want to lose our roots in Utah. So going forward, we will also have a Utah-specific contest where the winners will be showcased in the following issue of peculiar. Anyone from Utah is still welcome to submit to each issue of the journal going forward, but the contest is a way for us to guarantee that each issue will still have a number of contributors from within Utah to represent that first spark of peculiarity we love and that made us start this journal.

We hope you can all continue to support this journal we make for you, for the queer community, and for queer creative voices seeking to be heard.

To submit poetry, prose, art, or photography for our next issue, visit: http://www.peculiarjournal.com/submit