Once we got the ball rolling I was content to let Mike and Anna take over. I didn’t know what to expect. When Mike sent over the stories, it was a bit of a challenging moment for me as a publisher. Suddenly I was working on a piece of fiction writing! I was sort of ardent about no fiction or poetry on the site. Not because I don’t find value in either or enjoy it, but because it’s another creative universe and one I don’t know as well as photography. How as this going to work? I don’t really read much fiction or poetry these days so it’s tough for me to make judgements.

I enjoyed Miki’s stories though and sort of had a “fuck it” moment. I figured I’d let them fly and see what happens. At first I wasn’t planning on publishing them in the print issue but again, I thought, why not? Things were coming together organically and had already talked to James (Turnley) about featuring his collaboration with Ryan Headley. Suddenly, this issue was heavy on the writing which I was rather ardent about avoiding in print. At the end of the day I decided to print the two interviews as well and it turned out nicely.

I still have some reservations about fiction so who knows if we’ll see it again, but I’m very happy this feature is apart of LPV. It’s one that I’m very proud of and that’s really do to the wonderful collaboration that occurred between Anna and Miki.

I’m starting a new company with several cofounders right now, so I’m thinking a lot about how collaboration works—first because our team does it every day, and second because http://dovetail.co is a platform for connecting collaborators. Among the millions of pros and cons of truly collaborating with other people (not just “working” with them), this is my favorite: It lets you take bigger risks. 

When you have collaborators who you deeply trust and respect, they are constantly pushing to you be better, even when they don’t realize they are. You want to impress them and never let them down, so you push that extra hour on a project. You trust they know more than you about certain things, so you try something you wouldn’t have had the confidence to on your own. You know they’ll be there to support you and commiserate if things don’t go perfectly, so you let go of the fear of failing and do exactly what your gut tells you to.

These were all things I experienced while writing in response to Anna’s images. I have been writing publicly for a decade, but never fiction. It was something I wanted to try, but I needed someone to be responsible to, egging me on, to make me finally do it. I needed the behind-the-scenes positive responses from Anna and Bryan to shift from a short story to poetry, writing I consider so difficult that failure is pretty much assumed. And finally, I trusted Bryan enough as an editor/publisher to let it all go public, not only ephemerally online but as a real-world tangible object in the magazine.

Looking back on it all now, I’m so thankful. If you’ve ever published work publicly, you might recognize this feeling I get every time I see my byline on something: “Wow, did I do that?” I swear, to this day, I go back and read silly articles I wrote for the college newspaper and I still think that to myself. I thought that to myself as these pieces were published too, although this time it was more like: “Wow, did WE do that?”