Reports from the small-press sector indicate that everyone is tired but still accepting submissions.
Editors continue to read in the margins of paid work, caregiving, insomnia, software updates, and the difficult maintenance of hope. Many have developed a thousand-yard stare when asked whether simultaneous submissions are allowed.
Writers, meanwhile, continue to refresh Submittable with the intensity once reserved for weather radar and medical portals. Several have reported seeing meaning in the word Received. Experts advise caution.
Despite these conditions, the ecosystem persists. Journals appear. Journals disappear. Calls go out. Deadlines move. A poem finds a home. A chapbook sells seven copies and changes one person’s week.
The situation remains unstable, but not hopeless.