December 7, 2021

Dear Writers & Readers:

After a series of setbacks which caused an almost year-long hiatus in our publishing cycle, we pleased to announced that Dispatches are back!

We have so many more beautiful poems and writing pieces about the pandemic to share with you.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be publishing a lot of great new work from 2020, continuing in chronological order for now until we get to the present times.

This project continues to be the first Dispatches From Quarantine blog with this title in existence. We have been publishing work related to the pandemic since March 2020.

But, I want to mention that in starting this blog, I got my inspiration from the early YouTube videos coming out of Wuhan, China from some of the early citizen journalists and whistleblowers of the pandemic on YouTube (Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi, and Li Zehua, Li Wenliang) who have since been disappeared and in the case of Li Wenliang, who died in the hospital of Coronavirus.

As we progress into the pandemic, and Coronavirus has become a world story, this concept of dispatches has since changed or has been drowned out by the firehose of information about COVID-19 that is published hourly in the media.

Many people say that journalists write the first draft of history, and they’re right. But, they deal in facts. As creative writers, in many ways, we also write a first draft of history, but we deal in truth. We use words to paint the emotional truth of the current moment.

As for this blog, we remain committed to publishing literature about the pandemic. We will continue to move through our backlog of submissions and solicit new work as well! Thank you for your patience. Let me tell you: 2021 has been a rough year for me, but I’m relieved to report that the worst is over.

We am sorry the pandemic is lasting so long. I had hoped (perhaps foolishly) it would be over by now.

As for me, I have spent the last year keeping the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute alive and trying to survive.

If you would like to read more about what we’ve accomplished this year, have a look at our Giving Tuesday Newsletter.

We’re pleased to be back online. See you in the coming days and weeks! As always, you may submit work to us at submissions@dispatchesfromquarantine.co. We look forward to reading your work.

Yours Truly,

Alexandra Kostoulas,

Founder & Executive Director,

SF Creative Writing Institute