Since its founding 15 years ago 3^rd Wednesday has been a quarterly literary and visual arts journal in print. For the first twelve of those it was available only in print to subscribers and contributors. Two years ago, we started offering an electronic version of each issue free to anyone who wanted to read it. With that change, readership increased substantially.

Now it’s time for the next step. With the Winter issue we become a true hybrid of electronic and print publishing. We have always operated by offering no-fee submissions on a rolling basis and will continue to do so, but in our new hybrid model we will publish accepted work online at the time of acceptance. This means our website will be continually updated with new material and our print and electronic editions will be a compendium of pieces selected over the previous quarter.

Entries in the annual fiction and poetry contests will, of course, not be published online prior to release of the print edition of the magazine.

For contributors this means that published work will be immediately available to share with friends, family, on social media platforms, and on author websites using the link to the 3^rd Wednesday website. This drives traffic to the website and, while guests may come to read a specific piece, many will stay to read another and another, leading them to download a free issue or two.

Be sure to follow our blog by email to receive a notice each time a new piece is published.

Each accepted piece will appear on the website at the top of a menu on the right side of the screen. As new pieces are added, previous ones will move down one position on the menu. The most recent 10 posts will show on the menu and once a piece finally moves off the front-page menu, it will continue to be viewable by clicking on the 3W Blog button in the top menu of the home page. These posts are sortable by category to make posts easier to find.

The submission forms at Submittable now include a box for a 100-word 3^rd person bio and an upload space for an author photo. Both are optional and will only be used on the website when provided.

Nothing will change in the number of pieces or in the way that pieces are selected. Publishing standards will not change.

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