Niche
Niche is an online literary magazine that was designed to be limitless. Visit us at https://nichelitarchives.home.blog/
Niche was created to be inclusive but we only consider pieces that are well crafted, original, and previously unpublished. Please send all submissions to [email protected] or submit through our Submission Manager powered by Submission Manager. Visit www.nichelitmag.com for submission guidelines. Managing & Founding Editor: Katya Cummins
Designer: Maria Surawska
Poetry Editor: Katie Cantwell
Fiction Editor: Rochelle Liu
Art Coordinator: Shannon Hewson
Marketing Manager: Mary Keutelian
25/09/2021
“Don’t be ‘a writer’ but instead ‘be writing.’ Being ‘a writer’ means being stagnant. The act of writing shows movement, activity, life. When you stop moving, you’re dead."
Happy birthday to William Faulkner, born on this day in 1897. Our suggested way to celebrate: be writing.
We Are Niche Literary Magazine
Niche was originally conceptualized by Katya Cummins. Her wish was to create an online literary magazine that did not possess any aesthetic biases. Her aim was to provide seasoned and aspiring writers with an online community where an array of voices, from experimental and conventional, pulp and literary, non-fiction and creative non-fiction, graphic mediums, and fine art could co-exist. She wanted Niche to be for those writers, readers, and artists who had already carved or had yet to carve their perfect space within literary or non-literary communities. If you’re interested in finding out more about the origins of Niche be sure to check out the interview she gave with Smile Politely, or her statement “Our Origins: Why is Niche here?” on Niche’s current website.
As the interview states, she gathered a team of dedicated writers, artists, and editors. The first line up of which included Shannon Hewson, Mary Keutelian, Rochelle Liu, Katie Cantwell, Rebecca Kaplan, Beth Cohon, and Niche’s faithful and talented designer Maria Surawska. Though Rebecca Kaplan and Beth Cohon eventually left Niche for greener pastures, the input and time they poured into Niche No. 1 and Niche No. 2 were invaluable and greatly appreciated by the rest of the founding staff, who opted to stay and work on the remaining volumes - Niche No. 3, Niche No. 4, Niche No. 5, and Niche No. 6 – which were released in the subsequent four years.
In time, Niche put a call out for writers and launched Niche Columns. The first of these were “Shots of Expresso” written by Lauryn Ash, and “Lessons from Strangers,” written by Chris Fryer. Various Niche Features were also eventually founded for the purposes of supplementing the designed issues that were released annually. Some of these features including MFA Spotlights, Literary Journal Spotlights, and Career Spotlights, all of which were aimed at extending a helping hand to aspiring young writers. Of course, Niche website also featured interviews with our contributors, book reviews, short stories, and poems.
Sadly, going into its seventh year, Niche was forced to temporarily disband. However, the Niche team has worked tirelessly to preserve the work and time that was poured into both the website and the yearly issues. Anyone wishing to re-read content from the past six years can find the yearly issues here: https://issuu.com/nichelit. The content from the website can now be found and re-discovered here: https://nichelitarchives.home.blog/