H.O.W. Journal
Encyclopedia
H.O.W. Journal is a bi-annual non-profit art & literary journal founded in 2006. It features a mix of prominent contemporary writers and artists alongside upcoming talents in a variety of disciplines—fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and visual art.

H.O.W. Journal is published each spring and fall. The next issue, Issue 6, is set for release in April 2010. Each issue release is accompanied by a fund-raising event.

Currently, H.O.W. is raising funds to start an art, music and film-making program for Safe Space—a foster home in Queens, New York.

History

H.O.W. Journal was founded by Alison Weaver and Natasha Radojcic in 2006. They sought to create an intellectually and aesthetically stimulating art and literature journal featuring established as well as emerging artists from various genres. They continue to work with Stamatis Birsimijoglou, Art Director, to create a visually stunning magazine.

The H.O.W. acronym stands for Helping Orphans Worldwide and it refers to the second goal of the founding editors. H.O.W. Journal, Helping Orphans Worldwide, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax exempt organization. Proceeds from the journal have been used in an ongoing effort to raise money and awareness for various orphan-related humanitarian causes.

The dual goals of HOW have been summed up by founding editor Alison Weaver as follows:
“The vision we had when creating H.O.W was to appeal to a young, modern readership who hold both an avid interest in the arts as well as a general compulsion toward social consciousness. H.O.W. gives its readers a visually hip journal filled with talented artists and writers, while at the same time allowing them to support children that are in dire need of our help. I have noticed a shift in the world over the last decade, and I believe the new generation feels an urge to actively make a difference. H.O.W. gives them an opportunity to do just that.”


H.O.W. Journal is published biannually. Each issue launch is accompanied by a fund-raising event that both promotes the journal and contributes to the goal of raising money and awareness of the charity being supported.

H.O.W. Journal is currently based in Tribeca
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...

.

Events

Past events that H.O.W. Journal has hosted for issue launches have incorporated costume parties, literary contests, and silent auctions featuring designer clothing and jewelry, gift certificates, and many wonderful pieces of art donated by H.O.W. Journal contributors. Events have been held at venues such as Macao Trading Co. in Tribeca
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...

, New York City and Carly Simon’s Midnight Farm store on Martha’s Vineyard.

Events have also included guest readings from prominent authors and contributors such as Catherine O’Hara, Ben Taylor, Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

, Harold Ramis, Susan Minot, Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...

, David Gates
David Gates
David Gates is an American singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the group Bread, which reached the tops of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s. The band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame...

, Justin Taylor
Justin Taylor
Justin Taylor is a fictional character from the American/Canadian Showtime television series Queer as Folk, a drama about the lives of a group of gay men and women living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....

, Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...

, Barry Yourgrau, Tao Lin
Tao Lin
Tao Lin is an American writer. He was born of Taiwanese parents and grew up on the East Coast of the USA.He is the author of two novels, Eeeee Eee Eeee and Richard Yates ; a novella, Shoplifting from American Apparel ; a short story collection, Bed ; and two poetry collections, you are a little...

, Willie Perdomo
Willie Perdomo
-Overview:Willie Perdomo is a prize-winning Nuyorican poet and children's book author. He is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime , Postcards of El Barrio , and Smoking Lovely , which received a PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award...

, Joan Benefeil, Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte is an American novelist and short story writer.The son of the sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, Sam Lipsyte was born in New York City and raised in Closter, New Jersey...

, Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles is an American poet who has also worked in fiction, non-fiction, and theater.She won a 2010 Shelley Memorial Award.-Early life and career:...

, Geraldine Brooks, Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She has written many novels in prose collection. Howe was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S...

, Honor Moore
Honor Moore
Honor Moore is an American writer of poetry, creative nonfiction and plays.She is the author of three collections of poems: Red Shoes, Darling, and Memoir; two works of nonfiction, The White Blackbird and The Bishop's Daughter; and the play Mourning Pictures, which was produced on Broadway and...

, Alexandra Styron and Natasha Radojcic, as well as musical performances by Stephanie McKay
Stephanie McKay
Stephanie McKay is a soul singer and songwriter from the Bronx in New York, whose music encompasses styles include elements of classic rock, funk, pop and hip hop....

 and the indie rock band Drug Rug.

By hosting these literary events, H.O.W. Journal has successfully raised over $40,000 to date in aid of charity.

Charities

From its inception, the artistic goals of HOW Journal have been coupled with an effort to support charitable organizations working to aid some of the approximately 163 million children throughout the world that have been orphaned (12 million of those orphaned by AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 as the number rises every 15 seconds).

Currently HOW is raising funds to help start an art, music and film-making program for young adults at Safe Space. If successful, this program will give the city's most at-risk youth the opportunity to work creatively and express themselves in new mediums. The program will help develop the self-confidence and self-esteem necessary to lead positive and productive lives. Safe Space, more generally, is an organization that offers residential foster care to children that have aged out of the foster care system or are not accepted by it. It is a family-like, therapeutic environment where children receive the structure, acceptance, guidance and resources they need in order to thrive and grow up to lead positive and productive lives.

Past charities supported by HOW Journal have included:
  • Atetegeb Worku Memorial Orphanage in Addis Ababa
    Addis Ababa
    Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

    , Ethiopia
    Ethiopia
    Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

     run by Haregewoin Tefarra, an Ethiopian woman who opened her home to hundreds of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and whose inspiring life story is documented in Melissa Fay Greene
    Melissa Fay Greene
    Melissa Fay Greene is an American nonfiction author. A 1975 graduate of Oberlin College, Greene is the author of five books of nonfiction, a two-time National Book Award finalist, recipient of an honorary doctorate from Emory University in 2010, and a 2011 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of...

    ’s There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children.
  • SOS Children's Village in Zanzibar
    Zanzibar
    Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

    , Tanzania
    Tanzania
    The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

    , an international non-governmental social development organization that has been active in the field of children’s rights, needs, and concerns since 1949. Active in 132 countries and territories, SOS focuses on children without parental care or from families in difficult circumstances.

Contests

H.O.W. Journal is currently hosting its first short story contest to be judged by acclaimed author Susan Minot
Susan Minot
Susan Minot is a prize-winning American novelist and short story writer.Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Concord Academy and then attended Brown University, where she studied writing and painting; in 1983 she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts with...

. The contest is open to all writers and all themes. Winners will be published and receive cash prizes.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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