Over the last year, I’ve thought a lot about space: safer spaces, spaces to grow and the so-called spaciousness that remote work brings. The luster that brought me to this role was its implied spaciousness: a fully-remote project focused on digital preservation and leadership development in the field-building world of philanthropy. We were to be in the business of creating space, after all.

In our first few months, we spent most of our time carving out our space in the world. Rooting the legacy of Curve in today’s conversations required a sculptor’s focus, and we went about finding relationships, brands, and stories that were familiar to the Curve reader.

The Curve community grew out of these relationships, and I am proud of the space that exists there for nostalgia and today’s joys to sit side by side. At the same time, carving out space for us in those early months was akin to the hardest thing I’ve done. Think petroglyphs: carving thirty years of memories and 14,000 pages of Curve into a set of activities with some permanence felt like carving stone.

By the fall, we were full steam ahead into the Curve Award’s first year. Our goal was to carve out a space to grow for emerging journalists: Curve offered that for writers of the past, and our quarterly cohort meetings were an effort to make that space.

And – what a time the last year has been to be a queer storyteller: our storytellers brought the weight of the world’s stories to our space, and we learned, firsthand, how hard it is to be a journalist:

In real time, bearing witness to all of life’s challenges requires breakneck speed and unspeakable resilience; these journalists have had to watch the last few years unfold without looking away, sometimes for the benefit of all of us.

In that sense, carving out space is as much about development as it is decompression; for folks who work non-stop, in spaces where they are often the minority, what is needed is sometimes just a space to BE. That’s what the 2021-22 cohort called for, and that’s what we did. The space became about dreaming, learning, asking questions and sharing grievances. I learned a lot alongside them, and I am deeply grateful to each of our first year’s cohort members for trusting us enough to always tell the truth.

With spring came new conversations and new staff. On Lesbian Visibility Day, we launched the Beyond the Rainbow imprint, a digital conversation series exploring the intersections of queerness that exist “beyond the rainbow.” In that conversation, we found a safer and gentler space to explore the edges of womanhood that can sometimes keep our community apart.

Finally, summer is here, and we’ve finished our first year of programs! We carved out a space for ourselves in the world, and I am proud to say that we have worked to amplify our community and build lasting connections.

As we sculpt our path forward, we’ve focused our efforts on strengthening and defining our programs:

• Making our grantmaking more transparent and accessible to storytellers seeking funding
• Designing a data system for the Curve archive that will make sure every person and identity represented there can be found
• Using what we learned in year 1 of the Curve Award to strengthen the program’s structure & goals

We are so excited to continue this work. We aspire to be a champion for queer joy, and though we have our work cut out for us, I can’t think of a better time to give it a try. So, if you’re still reading this, smile. The Curve Foundation is here for you, and we’re working to make year 2 a year to remember.