OKAY, SO I HAVE TO ADMIT that going online freaked me out a little bit. It was the details: planning for mobile screen sizes, linking to author bios, uploading, saving, always saving.

But what freaks a person out can also be exciting, right? The immediacy of it (click, upload, and it’s there for everyone to see), the invitation to unfold onto your screen (large or small), discovering the stories you’ve clicked on (the stories you’ve read, the stories you like).

I want this new online magazine forum to be part of the conversation we’re all having about all things arts-and-culture in this place we call home.

I started out telling stories in print. After journalism school, I wrote for newspapers and magazines in Alberta, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Then came graduate school. Barely out the door with a PhD, I found myself in a little corner office on the second floor of MUN’s Education building, writing grant applications to fund Newfoundland Quarterly’s new website.

And here I am. With Matthew Hollett and Shannon Webb-Campbell and Drew Brown. With the five who wrote for us from the Port Authority writing group. With April White, Kumi Stoddart, John Graham, Veselina Tomovoa, and Katie Vatour. And with who knows who else over the next ten months?

Together we will give an online home to the oldest in-print magazine in Canada. What you read here is the result of over a century of magazine publishing and arts and culture history. We’re not just looking back—we’re looking ahead to what we can be.

I don’t know what this is all going to look like by the end of the year. This is the beginning. I’ll make mistakes. You’ll point them out and I’ll work to fix them. You’ll read new voices and I’ll work to make their stories bright and fresh. Think of an orange in the Newfoundland and Labrador winter, of a curl of orange zest.

First, I reached out to the members of the Port Authority, the writing group behind the 2015 book of short stories Racket. I sent them the title of an ongoing series that ran in the Newfoundland Quarterly in the 1940s. “Write anything you want,” I said. The headline? “When Newfoundland Saved Canada.” They sent me five flash fiction pieces that are SO MUCH fun to read. I’ll publish one a week for five weeks. You’ll read work by Sharon Bala, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Gary Newhook, Susan Sinnott, and Melissa Barbeau.

In non-fiction, poet and arts journalist Shannon Webb-Campbell writes about her life-long connections to Newfoundland and Labrador as home, even while growing up mostly in other places. Drew Brown wrote about the “People’s House,” the Confederation Building. His is a reflection on the meaning of public buildings as public art. Labrador photographer John Graham kicks off a photo project called Portraits of Labrador. And of course there’s our Creative Non-Fiction Fellow Matthew Hollett, who is breathing fresh life into our century-old archive of writing, photography, and visual art.

We have stories curated by managing editor Joan Sullivan under the Print Matters theme. These stories are about or from the print edition of Newfoundland Quarterly.

There will be more to come. We’ll publish on a linked quarterly theme, but get new content out every two weeks. Like us on facebook. Follow our Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Enjoy NQ Online.

-Michelle Porter, Digital Editor

This project was made possible with support from the Government of Canada.