Our Mission
The Curator is an organization dedicated to developing a literary conversation with values sourced in the Christian worldview, particularly as Christianity has historically been understood by Anabaptists (but not confined to the Anabaptist community). We want to build a community of writers and readers who inform each other, a culture that recognizes quality and strives to create things of value. Our mission is to provide good content to engage in and to train writers and readers to be able to engage in it.
Our Philosophy
We think that the Kingdom of God needs to develop a culture that can stand head and shoulders above secular culture. If our writing is poor and our thinking is shallow, people will go somewhere else for serious conversations. There is material within the Christian worldview to create works of astonishing beauty through the mediums of language and art. We learn through and are inspired by the praises of psalms, the lamentations of prophets, and the ordinary experiences of particular lives.
In recent years, there has been a rekindling of interest, within various Anabaptist communities, in reading and creating art. As writers and artists who value this contemporary renaissance, we wish to provide a medium for it. We believe that art thrives best within community, as various individuals receive the blessing of learning from the joy and insight of others.
Our Story
We’re a group of writers and readers who came together out of a couple of writing groups (you can meet some of us here). We didn’t have a lot of good places to publish our writing, so we decided to make one. Since we differ in personality, philosophy, and sense of humor, our publication shows a diversity of style and opinion. But we come together around our shared value of writing that has good craft and depth of content. We started out by publishing a poem per week as a way of networking with people who care about writing, and we’re now branching out into the genres of story and essay, besides offering events and learning opportunities for those interested in literature.
Our Approach
A lot of publications start by deciding exactly what kind of content they want to publish. Our goal has always been to find the good writing that is out there and make it available in a medium that encourages quality. Since we don’t aim for a particular aesthetic in our weekly poems, you may find that you don’t like all of our poetry.
A frequently asked question is why our poetry is or isn’t such and such a way. Observations are made on its overall density, subject matter, or poetic forms. In short, we publish what we receive, though we try to publish only poems that have craft and thought behind them. If you feel like our content isn’t balanced well, it probably means that we haven’t received enough submissions lately to be able to distribute them for variety. You can change that—we can’t. If you know people who are writing things that you connect with, send them here!
About Our Photography
The photography for our weekly poems is by Kenneth Godoy, one of our original editors. Its uniqueness has given a continuity to our weekly poems. Kenneth’s style captures the light that shines on mundane things. It exemplifies our belief that beauty and passion can be found in the ordinary and that the best poetry is about the things we know best. The photography and art for our other ventures is drawn from other sources, like submissions or classical artworks.
About Objectionable Content
Since our goal is to encourage good writing, sometimes we publish or facilitate content that may be objectionable to some. Each of the Curator’s editors is on a search for truth and beauty, and we hope that our readers are too. However, people who search for truth often disagree with each other about what it is. We believe that we can learn from each other without needing to agree. The truth about God and the world is too important to hide by imposing the worldview of any era or movement.
Chances are that if you don’t agree with something you see here, some of the editors don’t either. That poem or statement probably provoked a conversation among us, and we invite you to join the conversation, either by leaving comments or by sending us an email (best of all, by writing a blog post!). In sum, we seek to provide insightful content in the hope that our readers will be discerning.
Please Respond!
The feedback of one person may not be likely to drastically change our direction (although that has happened before), but, over the years, we’ve drawn heavily on the comments and criticism of our readers to improve the services we offer. If nothing else, we like being in conversation with people. Building a community is our first goal. So contact us!
Build More!
We’d love to see new literary ventures and communities springing up everywhere, more places where people can discuss things of depth and value. There are plenty of needs that we’re not meeting and niches that we don’t fit into, so if you have a vision for creating something, please contact us, and we’d love to support your venture in any way we can.