PRINT IS DEAD. LONG LIVE PRINT.
THANKS FOR CELEBRATING WITH US!
Photos from the May 11, 2019 RQ launch party at Philly PACK
THE WHO, WHAT, AND WHY BEHIND RQ. // Full video of the launch party remarks
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Heather Shayne Blakeslee
Dear Philadelphia:
Welcome to Root Quarterly.
RQ is one part magazine, one part collaborative art project, and one part social experiment.
We’ll offer you insightful and provocative essays, profiles of regional makers and artists, cultural criticism, fiction, poetry, and carefully-curated recommendations for getting the most out of life in Pennsylvania and beyond—including a cocktail or dinner recipe here and there—all in a beautifully designed and printed magazine you can hold in your hands and settle down with on a Sunday afternoon, or argue over at Thursday night happy hour.
Our volunteer staff have one big question on our minds as we emarbark on this project: If we build it, will you come?
It’s a big question. Are there enough of us, across a broad spectrum of ages and backgrounds, who want to thoughtfully disengage from the 24-hour news cycle and from the performance and outrage culture of social media? Enough of us want to celebrate our artists, makers, writers, and thinkers without snark and click bait, and share our best with the rest of the country and world?
Are there enough of us who are willing to subscribe to a quarterly journal that hopes to give you a chance to do both?
That’s where the social experiment comes in. That’s where you come in: We hope you’ll join us as we unplug, tune in, and get real. We hope you’ll be excited about paper, ink, and beautiful design, and we hope you’ll come out to our live events when we’re able to gather again. But you can still be part of our burgeoning community through virtual events and
Before we launched, we held RQ preview parties in private homes for over a year, talking about our plans and hearing directly from people about what they’re yearning for, what’s on their mind, and what worries them. Lack of real connection and community was at the top of that list, as was relentlessly partisan politics, and we hope that what we’ve put together for you will be the start of a remedy.
If you’d like to support independent media, civil discourse about difficult ideas, talented local makers and artists—and if you’d like to jump off the hamster wheel of online insanity—we hope you’ll subscribe today.
Print is dead. Long live print.
Sincerely,
Heather Shayne Blakeslee
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief