Dear readers, artists, friends, and donors,

In 2017, just after we founded The Sunlight Press, a woman named Chris Seitz submitted an essay to us via a friend of hers, because—due to illness—her laptop had become too heavy for her. We loved the idea of one friend helping another to get her work into the world, and when we read Chris’s essay, “One Hundred in the Garden,” we loved her determination to live to be 100 years old, and her account of discovering the beauty and power of gardening.

As our fifth year comes to a close, we’re filled with gratitude and nostalgia for those early days when we didn’t know whether our journal would succeed—but it has, because of our writers, our readers, and our donors. We thank all of you!

We are especially grateful that we have been able to publish work by a wide range of writers—some who had never been published before, others who are long established and award-winning. They belong to different generations and hail from countries around the world.

Most of the donations to our nonprofit journal come at the end of each calendar year—so we’re writing today to seek your support. We’re asking you to help us reach our $3,000 fundraising goal for 2021 by December 31. Thanks to donors’ support, this year we were able to pay every artist we published, increase pay to regular contributors, and offer a $500 cash prize in this year’s writing contest. (All donations are applied in full to pay honorariums to the artists whose work we publish.) We are grateful to those of you who have donated already—we’ve received $675 in donations so far this year.

This year, the two of us will personally be making a $500 matching gift: we will match every donation we receive between now and December 31, dollar for dollar, until they total $500. If you’ve considered donating, but haven’t yet, this is a chance to make your gift mean even more—and we’d love your support.

Here’s some feedback we’ve gotten from writers:

I’ve been on both sides of the publishing world….The Sunlight Press was the best experience that I’ve had. I appreciate the clear communication, professionalism, and passion that your journal presented to me….It was very refreshing to experience. —Mark Massaro

How can I thank you for checking, double-checking, triple-checking, and putting in such time and care? —Kitty Jospe

I am sending everybody to the issue that I can. You all are a class act. —Shoshauna Shy

Thank you for making the posting of my poems so beautiful… that photograph you chose is stunning. You have been marvelous to work with. —Sally Nacker

If you’re an email subscriber, you received a similar request from us in your inbox last week. If you’re not a subscriber yet, you can sign up  here to receive our posts by email. (Scroll to subscription box at bottom of homepage. We publish twice weekly, on Mondays and Wednesdays, and occasionally at other times.)

To donate via PayPal or with a credit card, please visit our support page, or mail a personal check made payable to The Sunlight Press, to P.O. Box 161, Merion Station, PA 19066. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. Based on past experience, we know we can count on you to help us reach our goal.

Many thanks for considering our request! Your support is deeply appreciated.

In gratitude,

Rudri Patel & Beth Burrell
Editors
The Sunlight Press