A DYNAMIC COLLABORATION OF WRITERS & READERS
All of Fence lives through the generous support of our members and direct donors, government and institutional grants, revenue from Fence Book sales, and our biannual literary arts magazine subscriptions.
By joining us for the first time or renewing your support, you thus stand with us, proclaiming your agreement that this literary arts venture should flourish. Your direct donation or annual membership donation allows us to do the delicate work of publication. You then provide Fence writers with not only your readership but also direct fiscal support, as the amount of compensation we can budget to provide to our writers depends on what your contributions make fiscally possible.
Bolstered by Members and Subscribers, Fence will continue to publish explosive new books and provide you in the pages of Fence magazine and here on our website with nonconforming literature selected by our array of editors almost entirely from the general submissions. We will ensure that not only will Fence be a source and support for unconventional writing, but that from there we will continue together to leap into work previously unimaginable.
You will find where to select your membership tier below, where you may alternatively choose to give a direct donation.
Membership donations (beyond the cost of membership gifts) and direct donations are tax-deductible.
HELP FENCE REACH ITS 2025 GOALS
»» To continue to expand access to, and awareness of, nonconforming literature inside and outside of in-the-know literary communities—to increase subscriptions, availability, and conversation of the literary arts magazine and books.
»» To fundraise $20,000 in order to fully fund the printing, distribution, and mailing of Fence #42 (Winter 2024-25) and Fence #43 (Fall 25).
»» To fundraise $25,000 to reasonably compensate all Fence workers for their editorial labor and to increase pay for print Fence contributors and Fence Book authors for their poetry, prose, and other writing.
»» To fundraise $18,000 to fund the redesign of the Fence website and the integration of fencedigital.com into fenceportal.org.
See each membership level for details about its distinctive rewards.
You can join or donate instead by sending a check via the post office to our officially registered nonprofit address:
Fence Magazine, Inc.
c/o Emily Wallis Hughes
36-09 28th Avenue
Apt. 3R
Astoria, NY 11103-4518
Our Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 134007764.
FENCE Books 2024
At the "Variously as Possible" Membership tier ($150) and above, you will receive Jennifer Nelson's book of poems, On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies, selected for the Ottoline Prize.
Forthcoming on November 22, 2024
"These are ekphrastic poems unlike any others you’ve read— ekphrastic poems that interrogate the poet’s own responsibility for drawing our attention to the pictures. These are poems that subvert what it means to write ekphrasis, and subvert and poke fun at the academy in general. You could say Nelson’s entire poetic practice is ekphrasis, or you could say looking at art and thinking about it is the way she sees the entire world, like her eyes are simply made of art. Politics, global history, the self— all of them refracted through eyes made of art. These poems are such a pleasure. I love knowing Nelson is out there grappling with the big issues in her strange, private imagination." – Matthew Rohrer
"Jennifer Nelson’s On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies unites, in complication, the discordant present with the discordant past. Nelson’s “unison of bots,” an ever roaming, ever revolving consciousness is put to the task of recording the intersections where knowledge/material is exchanged and beauty sometimes sacrificed. These poems speak from deep inside the distributed information, they want the last word." – Ish Klein
"Forests grow in many forms. Some are historic, some contained in the masses of coerced paperwork to establish academic belonging and relevance to authoritarian hierarchies. Some are allegorical, with more ambivalent relations to everyday violence. Here, Jennifer Nelson moves through several kinds of forests, carefully observing "the reduction to vestige / of entire cultures" and inviting us to join her inquiry into all the things that a "forest robbery" might be. Are we talking Robin Hood, or extractive neoliberalism, or the theft of human-and-beyond lifeworlds? Where do such robberies happen but in the forest––the burning Amazon, the concrete "jungle"––where we've exiled our unwanted others, our consequences? Yet the promise of community suggested by the greenwood is also present. How do we live this mess? We must "not misunderstand the sun [must] not/misunderstand the flowers." We can build from "the word barcada / friend-group and boat / or friend-ship" and find a river to launch on, together." – Jay Besemer
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