The magazine Journal of the Plague Year started as a spontaneous reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 2016, like many other Americans, we'd been questioning, well, everything. 

Journalists wondered if their work mattered in a time of "alternative facts." 

Artists and literary writers wondered if they could scrape by in a country that had devalued both art and spirit. 

We all wondered if America could survive.

Trying to answer that question, Journal of the Plague Year created a new kind of nonfiction, a mashup of creative writing technique--nonfiction narrative, memoir,  the lyric essay--with high-quality explanatory and analytical journalism. And, yeah, the occasional meme. Because sometimes, let's face it, that's the best way to tell the story. 

Our writers include people like Blanche McCrary Boyd, Steve Erickson, Mikal Gilmore, J.C. Hallman, Ted Mooney, and Terry Tempest Williams. We publish powerful yet refined poems. We bring you music and art.

And we're keeping our content open to all, no paywalls, ever. We don't carry advertising. 

We do invite you to buy books through Bookshop.org to support our work. 

Susan Zakin, Editor

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR