Upcoming Events
Issue #30: POSITION launch - Sunday November 5, 2023 @ 2pm at Blinky’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, backyard or indoors, depending on weather
Click here for Archive of Past Events
Submission Guidelines
Click here to learn how to submit
Mission
No, Dear aims to bring together the voices of New York City poets who might not otherwise be in dialogue: both emerging and established poets from diverse backgrounds who are living and writing in New York City’s five boroughs. We aspire to disrupt a field that has historically privileged white patriarchal perspectives by building a publication and communal/critical dialogue that strives to be largely representative of women-identified poets, and poets of color and of all gender expressions.
Archive of No, Dear poets and artists
No, Dear is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Your donation helps us fulfill our mission.
The Publications
Each issue of No, Dear magazine, published biannually in spring and fall, is representative of a particular season of a particular year in which poets respond to a common theme giving voice to contemporary concerns around both content and form, creating a critical conversation. By inviting a previously-published No, Dear poet to co-edit each issue, we incorporate an additional editorial voice, challenge our editorial tendencies, and widen the circle of writers, artists, and audience members who participate with No, Dear. We hope each issue of the magazine can, in a small way, document the extraordinary poetry that is responding aesthetically and politically to life in New York in the early 21st century.
We value the book as an object. By hand-making the magazines we honor a history of the labor and artistry of book-making. We also collaborate with Small Anchor Press to publish first chapbooks of NYC poets.
Community
Being in dialogue with other poets is an essential part of building community, which is the heart of No, Dear. Our launch readings are integral to the publication cycle. Because we only publish local writers, and because we insist on a slim volume (one can read it in a single bathroom visit or a day’s commute), our launch readings usually include all, or almost all, of the poets in the issue, so everyone gets to meet - or reconnect - face to face. We follow each launch by: 1) publishing conversations online between two poets in the issue, which gives them a chance to deepen the conversation that began by their poems finding a home in the same issue of the journal and 2) hosting a reading curated collaboratively by poets in the issue, again widening the circle. We hope to continue to find ways to foster communities of poets in New York City, through publication, conversation (in person and online), readings, and workshops.
Who We Are: Our Editors & Advisory Board
History
No, Dear grew out of an always-evolving community of poets workshopping in Brooklyn. The first issue, published in Spring of 2008, was edited by cofounders Emily Brandt, Alex Cuff, Katie Moeller, and Jane Van Slembrouck, and bound on old Singer sewing machines in Emily's basement. Several of the poems published in the first two years of No, Dear were written and revised in the workshop, or by friends of participating writers. Eventually Jane and Katie moved on to other endeavors and Alex and Emily decided to widen the community of poets by inviting guest editors and cover artists and sending out wider calls for submission. In 2013, No, Dear partnered with Jen Hyde of Small Anchor Press to begin publishing chapbooks, and in 2016, t'ai freedom ford joined the editorial team.
Press
12 or 20 (small press) questions with Emily Brandt on No, Dear at rob mclennan's blog, 2017
No, Dear/Small Anchor at Entropy, 2017
No, Dear: Issue #19 Launch at The Village Voice, 2017
The Women of No, Dear (Episode 12) at On Poetry Podcast, 2017
Chapbook Alchemy: No, Dear/ Small Anchor Jen Hyde, Emily Brandt, and Alex Cuff with Sonia Farmer at Brooklyn Rail, 2016
Lizzie Harris's Seven Poet/Editors at Vela, 2016
Emily Brandt and Alex Cuff on No, Dear at Poetry Society of America, 2015
Editors Cat Richardson, Emily Brandt, Alex Cuff, and Natalie Eilbert Discuss the Future of the Periodical at English Kills Review, 2013
Snapshot: No, Dear Magazine at Coldfront, 2012
Contact
Send inquiries to NoDearMagazine@gmail.com.