When we launched the Amsterdam Open Book Prize in 2019, we could not have anticipated the kind of future we were all about to enter. We imagined a time of celebration and connection but instead experienced a time of introspection, sadness, fear, frustration. The joyous moments that we were able to facilitate would cradle us for unlimited amounts of time, becoming positive nodes to be revisited. One of those nodes was the publication of our very first Versal Edition book of poetry, For Work / For TV by Fee Griffin.

Versal has always had a dynamic team of editors and volunteers. We expanded and contracted over the years, allowing us to develop in different ways. I remember early on having packed meetings, sitting on the floor of Megan’s living room, these were exhausting and invigorating at the same time and it makes me happy to know all those people have gone on to cultivate their own path in the art and literary world.

We have been with a small group of editors for quite a few years, and it is with these amazing five women that we undertook a rigorous rethinking of our vision and ethos, which brought us back to a more intimate and regenerative space. Cultivating this space became more urgent as one crisis after another dominated our lives. We wanted to forge new pathways of care similar to how a mycelium network functions in the ecosystem around it, giving and receiving nourishment to each other and the community.

We made the decision to start Versal Editions, publishing one collection of work in order to give it more space and inhabit the resonance of a book length rendition and we are still basking in the warmth of our first publication.

This fall we launch the second call. This time around, we all felt a need to share the process with more people, partially because of the enormous workload but more importantly because we want to expand the conversations about writing, art, community, and publishing. Our reading team is a way for us to open up the space to an amazing group of people who are in different stages of their own writing and artistic practice, and are thinking about publishing in new ways we want to give voice to.

Versal has always worked through collaboration and is a participant in conversations around art, writing, editing, publishing, economies, education, performance, etc., as a collective, but also individually as editors. We have experienced this as an act of support and self care. Inviting a reading team to participate in the publishing process is a way of knowledge sharing and learning. Like with mycelium rich terrain, when the collaboration is holistic, it gives back to the whole. Mycelium is alive beneath and above the ground, it can influence the weather, it transmits valuable nutrients to the flora and fauna in its reach, it transforms in resonance to that which surrounds it and in turn has transformative qualities for those who come in contact with it—magic— and here we are interchanging spores.

We don’t know what the future will bring but we know that we will always find joy, support, and inspiration in our community. We are excited to see all the work that will be shared with us for the Amsterdam Open Book Prize and to do that with an amazing team of readers.