Editor's Notes: May 2016

Well, it's been a little over a year since I shut down this space. And here we are again.

In 2014, when I decided to start Lady, I did it without really taking the kind of time I should have to prepare. This is one of my biggest flaws. I get so excited about an idea and jump right in before I've done all the things I need to make it a success. I get in a big damn hurry. And then it fizzles out, either because I lose interest or become discouraged, and I'm left with something else to add to my growing pile of half-finished projects. It's the curse of the creative, a frustrating piece of my personality I'm sure many of you can relate to, as well.

But sometimes an idea won't go quietly. And over the last few months, Lady kept coming back to me.

I realized that my biggest mistake before was not necessarily trying to launch a literary magazine on my own. After all, there are a number of start-up publications that are headed up by a single person. It was my feeling that Lady had to fit into a particular box. It couldn't just be something I enjoyed. It couldn't just give women, and especially new writers, a voice, something I'd actually written about on the original website bio. It had to be cool. It had to be relevant (a word that damages many a creative endeavor). It had to be all the things. I fell for the comparison trap. And I fell hard. Soon, I had little affection for this magazine that had been birthed from a place of deep love. I still loved words, but I didn't love what I was doing with them. So I shut the magazine down. It felt like a failure, but I look at it now and feel kind of proud that I stepped away instead of letting the magazine become an albatross around my neck. The worst thing that could have happened would have been allowing the whole site to suffer instead of admitting defeat. And now that a year has passed, I am ready to start over.

Today, I re-launch Lady with a few lessons under my belt and my original mission still very much intact. This is a place created for women, by women. It's a space where female writers of all ages and life experiences can come to share their stories. It's no longer my goal for Lady to win Most Popular. My goal is for Lady to showcase beautiful writing that is authentic, funny, and heartbreaking from women who are living life and, most importantly, talking about it. And that's what I'm doing.

Thank you for coming along. I hope you enjoy!