Fall has always felt, to me, to be more of a true start to the year than January.
It’s a time for recalibration, a litany of “back to’s,” a season that signifies change for all five of our senses — and, importantly, a time for letting things go. It feels weirdly appropriate, then, to welcome in this autumn, this new year, with a bittersweet farewell — to one of our co-founders and our longtime director of programs, Bretty Rawson.
For anyone who has been a part of the Seventh Wave community, whether as an early supporter or as a newer follower, you may experience this news as a slight shock to the system, as Bretty has been such an integral part of the organization from day one. In fact, there arguably would not be a Seventh Wave without Bretty at all, as he and another co-founder were the ones who discovered the original kernel of an idea for the organization back in late 2014.
But there is a season for everything, and this tidal shift has been a long time in the making for us.
A bit of context: Back in early 2022, our team decided to take a pause from publishing and programming in the latter half of the year in order to rest, reassess, and chart a new path forward. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, we felt called upon to show up, as we were — by and large — a digital community. And so, we did what we’ve always done best: build more community in the digital space. We launched #SevenAtSeven, an early pandemic social media campaign where alum read from their favorite books; the Mind Capsule project, an attempt to capture what was happening in different alums’ lives through video blogs; and editorial residencies, which took the place of our in-person residencies and eventually became the blueprint for our current Narrative Shifts digital residency. Needless to say, by 2022, two years in, we were exhausted, and knew we needed to strategize in order to make the Seventh Wave a truly sustainable organization without sacrificing our core tenets of relationality, inclusivity, and accessibility.
So during that fall of 2022, Bretty and I put our heads together and came up with an actionable road map forward that felt daunting and daring — but also, incredibly, possible. We would roll out a few new programs that would help address both the gaps we were finding in the literary world and the lack of reliable funding available to us as “just” a literary magazine. Up to that point, we had gotten by with grassroots fundraising and the occasional grant, but we knew that keeping our heads down and just doing the work also meant we weren’t zooming out to look at the big picture.
The big picture being that so many of our favorite lit mags were folding, or running on fumes — and we didn’t want to fold or become another cautionary tale. Also, we knew enough to recognize that a nonprofit is only the sum of all its parts, so if it falls apart, then the people behind it break, too. This is how our three-year strategic plan was born. Our goal was an ambitious one: to create a robust literary ecosystem that could be relatively self-sustaining, able to weather the unpredictable boom or bust cycle of grant writing and fundraising, while also providing valuable opportunities for writers at all different stages of their careers.
Writers supporting writers, in the most literal sense of the word.
Over the past few years, we’ve put that plan into action. In 2023, we launched the first phase, Community Anthologies, a cohort-based publishing program that gives curatorial keys to members of our community; in 2024, we rolled out phase two, Narrative Shifts, a genre-agnostic, process-based incubator for writers looking to deepen their creative practice; in 2025, we introduced two other digital residencies — The Workshop and The Cohort. And we’re currently elbows-deep in the process of getting the third and final phase of our strategic plan ready to launch: the Writer’s Hub, a membership-based platform that offers a virtual home base for writers seeking resources, genuine connection, and creative spark.
All of which to say, we’ve been busy — but we’ve been moving with renewed purpose and passion, and have been so heartened to see how our community has responded to our new programs and offerings. Success is something that can be measured in so many different ways, but for us, witnessing the excitement with which our community members shout about their wins and find deep, meaningful connections with each other is the most telling metric of success. We publish people, not just pieces, after all, so when writers feel changed on a human level — and want to pay it forward by telling others about their experiences — that is how we know we’re on the right track.
But as with anything, there is always more to the story.
There is also an undercurrent to the strategic plan we mapped out back in 2022 that is a bit more bittersweet: the last step of the plan that we penned together had me stepping into a full-time role, and Bretty stepping out, as we developed the model to only fund one full-time position. Up until that point, Bretty and I had been building and working on the organization in tandem with our day jobs for about seven years. We squeezed meetings in between work deadlines, stayed up til all hours pontificating about the possibilities of this topic or that, had jam sessions to create fundraising campaigns out of thin air. It was exciting and all-consuming, but the organization was also quickly outgrowing our scrappy roots. Seventh Wave began as a passion project, but with the implementation of these new programs and strategies, it had the potential to be so much more. What that would require, though, was at least one person dedicating their time and energy solely to the Seventh Wave to give our plan the best chance to flourish.
And so, here we are, at the quiet reality of our strategic plan: one of us stepping fully in and one of us stepping fully out.
It’s been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make our strategic plan a reality over these past few years, but we’ve been doing it, and we’re continuing to do it, driven by the deep-seated belief that writers and writing matter, and that art is where we meet each other. Reaching this inflection point has offered us a poignant moment of pause and reflection to think back on all that the Seventh Wave has done and become over the past 11 years, and how all of our hard work and dedication has set the stage for this next big chapter for the organization.
Because when I say that there would not be a Seventh Wave without Bretty, I should note that I don’t just say this because he and one other came up with the idea in the first place, but because he’s been such an essential part of who we are as an entity and a community. Anyone who’s worked with Bretty knows the vicarious thrill of seeing their mind at work to create programs, problem-solve on the fly, or rally team members around a cause. His enthusiasm is unmatched, as is his capacity to dream toward possibilities. Community Anthologies was Bretty’s brainchild, a beautiful way to celebrate our community’s diverse interests and perspectives while also offering folks our knowledge from many years of editing and publishing pieces. The concept of a digital residency, too, as a place to gather folks from all around the globe to write and create in tandem, is a Bretty Rawson original, and something that’s become a foundational part of our many offerings.
And even before that, Bretty has been an anchor within the organization, doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work: creating social media graphics, documenting events, cooking and cleaning at our in-person residencies (not to mention going on many grocery runs!), and tenderly facilitating spaces both virtual and in real life. Anyone who’s attended one of our in-person residencies can attest to Bretty’s talents at the grill and their excellent listening skills, in equal measure. Holding space is an art, after all. Which is all to say that it is not lost on me what a seismic shift it will be to move into this next new unknown without Bretty’s buoyant presence and creativity, but I also know that seasons of change are a necessary part of the process. And besides, thankfully, Bretty and I are not only Seventh Wave colleagues, but also married costars for life, so to that end, Bretty will always be a welcome and important part of the community.
As Bretty has told those who have been in know about this change, “This just means I get to support Seventh Wave in a new way.”
And as I’ve told Bretty, This also means we get to support you in a new way, too. With Bretty’s blessing to share, they’ll be leaning fully into the storytelling studio they’ve built over the past several years, Slow Blink, which combines his deep passion for and knowledge of craft with his experience in digital storytelling roles across industries, helping organizations and individuals to shift narratives and industries. (Bretty also, I should add, builds websites for authors and writers through Slow Blink!) Perhaps most excitingly, though, Bretty is also at work on their fiction manuscript, Shadow Boys, which I’ve gotten glimpses into and cannot wait to see unfold and reach wider audiences.
So please join me in saying a heartfelt “thank you” to Bretty for all that he’s done for the Seventh Wave over these past 10+ years, helping the organization to find its footing and to begin again and again, more confident and surefooted each time. Deep gratitude to you, Bretty, for all the ways that you’ve helped shape who we are, and cheers to this new season of growth, expansion, and manifesting. We’re cheering you on, always in your corner, just one pun away. Onward, we go then, into the fall, to see what abundance this new sea change will bring.
