When a Digital Magazine Gathers Bodies

Alec Gewirtz

A digital literary magazine is, by definition, small.

There are already not that many readers of literary magazines. Narrow the focus to spirituality, mysticism, and religion, and the audience gets smaller still. That reality changes how you build.

If your project is small, engagement can’t be abstract. You have to care for a small audience in a way that feels human. For us, that has meant gathering in-person. From the beginning, we’ve believed that events are not an “extra” for a digital magazine like Kismet. They are central to it.

Part of this is practical. Literary magazines become more real when writers read their work aloud—when words leave the page and land in bodies. Anyone who has spent time in religious traditions understands this instinctively. A scripture reading is never just information transfer; it’s a moment of shared attention. When a literary reading is done well, it can carry a similar spiritual weight.

But the real reason we gather is relational.

When people show up to an event, something shifts. Writers are no longer disembodied names on a screen. People meet and conversations start. Sometimes friendships form. These gatherings remind us that behind every essay or poem is a person who took a risk and behind every reader is someone hungry to feel less alone in their questions.

There’s also a quieter magic that happens at these events, especially in the literary world, which offers very little money and glamour. At its best it offers camaraderie. A sense of being part of a small, dignified community doing something that matters, even if it will never attract a lot of attention.

One of the moments that stays with me most involves a young writer whose work we published early on. It was his first major publication. His first New York reading. The morning after our event, he drove straight back to campus for his college graduation. Being able to say publicly and seriously, “we believe in you” mattered. That kind of affirmation can linger.

This is what our events do for the soul of a project. They allow people to be seen and heard. To feel that their creative and spiritual longings have a place to land. They make it possible for meaningful relationships to form, not just between readers and writers, but among peers.In a world that increasingly pushes spiritual and literary exploration into private corners and solitary scrolling, gathering bodies in a room is important. We’ll do it for as long as we exist.