By Sophie Chiang, VI Form

Increasing Accessibility in the Literary Community with the V Form Fellowship: The Aurora Journal

Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.

When I created The Aurora Journal (theaurorajournal.org) two summers ago, I just planned to publish my friends’ writing for fun. Literary journals were everywhere–all one had to do was submit their poetry and prose to them and hope their writing would be accepted and published. So never did I imagine that my own Journal would be able to reach thousands of submissions and be featured in news sites and blogs–a testament to the passion of our contributors. But when I first started gaining traction, I knew I wanted to do something more with my platform than just publishing writers. There exists a significant disparity gap in the writing world, in which cisgender, wealthy, educated white males dominate. With the support of the V Form Fellowship and many writer friends, The Aurora Journal has been able to make a positive impact in promoting inclusivity and accessibility in the writing community.