am happy to announce some excellent news: Aftermath has been named a finalist in the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award! It would be an understatement to say that we are honored and humbled to see the book receive this kind of recognition. At Radix Media, our mission in publishing is to prioritize the work of typically marginalized communities. We are thrilled that Aftermath—whose contributors cover a wide range of identities and ethnicities—has formed the foundation of our publishing program.
When we conceived of the project, our goal was to publish a book, but we were fully prepared to publish a chapbook. How many submissions could we possibly receive, anyway? Fifty? Maybe a hundred, at the most. So imagine how floored we were when we received nearly a thousand! Over and over, people shared that the writing they submitted was some of the hardest they’d ever done. It was, of course, impossible to publish all of them, but we knew that we’d struck a nerve, and the path we set out on felt justified long before the date of publication. This sense of accomplishment was fully cemented when the book received a five star review from Foreword Reviews.
The process of editing Aftermath was long and difficult. We knew that the subject matter was heavy, but weren’t prepared for just how heavy some of the stories would be. And in putting together the final manuscript, it was going to be critical to have peaks and valleys in there, to keep the book from just being a downer to the reader. We aimed to make the best book that we possibly could. Tia Smith, at Foreword Reviews, wrote that “the collection offers a poignant, intimate view of pain from the margins of society” and that “by melding together voices from different walks of life, Radix Media’s Aftermath exposes a deep, heartfelt, and widely encompassing picture of grief and the growth that stems from it.” Given that, I think our mission was accomplished.
Despite all of our ambitions and intentions, we could have not done this without all of our amazing contributors. A special shout-out goes to Joaquin Fernandez, who was a contributing editor to the book and whose excellent story, “A Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye Sex” was the catalyst of the project. But every single story, poem, and image in the book is worthy of your attention. Another special shout-out goes to Erin Mathieu, who was our wonderful poetry editor. She was absolutely critical in the selection process.
If you haven’t purchased a copy of the book, you can do so in our online store. The book is also available from a select list of stockists, just scroll down to the bottom of the Aftermath page to see them. A huge thank you to Foreword for their recognition of the book that launched our revamped publishing program.
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Congratulations and a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped make this book a reality!
