Wow - this is a fabulous post; thank you for sharing it! I mean fabulous in the usual sense of amazing and wonderful, and also in the etymological sense, as in this is a very good fabula, story. It is from stories that we get our second-hand experience, from stories that we best learn how to avoid reinventing the wheel. And I hope the stories you publish, whether the format be poetic or prosaic, challenge and push a little at the norms of what it means to be a woman even as your origin story here pushes at whether an origin for a magazine needs to be rooted in a passionate childhood dream or long quest. I like the quieter persistence, the focus on building something that will last.

Would you feel comfortable linking to your 'If I did it' post & to ysabetwordsmith's check list (if the latter is already public) here in the comments? As a community admin myself I suspect there's overlap between running a literary magazine and running a literary discussion community that I could learn from, and I must admit I'm really curious.