Apogee is a 501c3 literary organization that encourages thoughtful exploration of identity at its intersections: race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability status.
The word “apogee” denotes the point in an object’s orbit farthest from a center. In turn, we celebrate artistic expression far from the political center, created by artists and writers of oppressed identities who interrogate aesthetic and political status quos in their work. As we do so, we pay tribute to the Black feminist Combahee River Collective in recognition that “the major systems of oppression are interlocking.” To that end, we combat the domination of white, cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, settler-colonial voices that pervade our literary landscape.
We feature fiction, nonfiction, poetry, flash fiction, reviews, interviews, and visual art. By hosting low-cost community writing workshops, panel discussions, and public readings, we model practices of equity, linguistic diversity, abolition, and decoloniality in publishing. Our staff is composed of writers, teachers, students, activists, and organizers. We identify predominantly as Black, women of color, and LGBTQ from varying class backgrounds across the world. We understand that the personal and the political are inseparable. Our collective lived experiences motivate Apogee’s commitment to liberation; we seek to move beyond representation for its own sake.
Apogee affirms the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and freedom for Palestine.
History
In 2011, a group of writers of color and international students in Columbia’s graduate writing program created Apogee as a space to intervene in conversations about traditional publishing. Recognizing the ideological and ethical limitations of publishing under the umbrella of a large institution, Apogee began operating independently as a biannual print journal in 2013. It expanded its community of contributors and staff beyond Columbia, operating independently as a biannual print journal, concurrently building an active online hub, Perigee, which featured original content, editorials, interviews, and much more.
As Apogee grew, we decided to explore the capabilities of digital publishing, putting together online folios that responded to emergencies. We published collections that speak with Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson and beyond, call out abusive figures in the literary sphere, express solidarity with the #NoDAPL movement, and more.
Alongside our publishing work, we deepened connections to our local communities, especially in New York City. We curated readings and open mics, including annual celebrations of our issue launches and readings, and participated in the Governor’s Island Poetry Festival and Brooklyn Book Festival. We hosted low-cost writing workshops (Writing in the Margins, Writing Resistance) sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council. Our editors contributed to panels, interviews, and editorials about making publishing more accessible and equitable. To explore these conversations, see:
- “Editorial Power Means Blowing Up the Machine from the Inside: Nine Women Editors on Sexual Discrimination in the Literary World” (Lit Hub)
- “FROM THE EDITORS: The Politics of ‘Blind Submissions’ Policies” (Apogee Journal)
- Andrés Cerpa, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, and Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves on Resistant Spaces, Plant Life, and Instrumentality (moderated by Zefyr Lisowski and Crystal Yeung) (Apogee Journal)
- “Publish, Perish, Other: A Talk-Back” (a conversation between Joey De Jesus and Muriel Leung) (Apogee Journal)
- “Behind the Editor’s Desk: Muriel Leung” (Women Who Submit)
After exploring the potential of both site-specific and digital activities, we decided to focus on building an all-online publishing platform. In 2018, Apogee started its digital transition with the hope of building a broader artistic community beyond New York City.
While we started with a subscription model for accessing our biannual issues, we eventually eliminated the paywall, making our digital issues free for all to access.