Editor’s Note

Dear Readers,

After months of behind the scenes work, consulting with friends and fellow editors, and working with writers who have original ideas about fiction, today we launch The Rejoinder, an online magazine focused on smart, serialized fiction. 

The idea for the magazine arose about a year ago. I was watching the movie In the Mood for Love. I’m always a sucker for this one–missed connections, unrequited and unexpected love–yet on this viewing, I was attuned to the film’s 1960s aesthetics. In technicolor Hong Kong apartments and hotel rooms, the romantic leads bond over their love of the serials. They pass the newspaper between each other so they stay up to date on the story’s weekly installments, and they connect so deeply that they begin writing one of their own. The experience of reading, consuming, and interacting with stories week-to-week felt so rich, and receiving it in this form–as opposed to reading Great Expectations in one fell swoop in ninth grade English class–enhanced the storytelling. 

Our focus is serialized fiction. We publish one story a month, released in weekly installments each Friday. Syncing the medium and storytelling, we want to highlight the best that fiction has to offer. We want literary fiction that lends itself to serialization, stories that riff on the weekly breaks, novellas that might not fit anywhere else. We are compelled by confident writing with a penchant for plot and suspense. 

By focusing on one story a month, we seek to create a space that raises the voices of both emerging and established writers of various backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. Our first few months take a tour through genre with stories that are funny, speculative, and historical. We have a lot planned for these first few months, and we hope you’ll dial in on Fridays to get your weekly helping of fiction. 

-Michael Colbert

Editor-in-Chief