Introduction: Why We Need a “Values” Page
Not Quite Right is a literary magazine, which means, of course, that we care about writing. But we also care about people.
We care about the people who send us their work, the people who read what we publish, and the people whose lives, bodies, families, identities, griefs, joys, questions, and contradictions show up on the page. That is why we need a values page. Not because we think a page like this solves everything. Not because we want to turn literature into a checklist. Not because every poem, story, or essay has to make a political argument.
But because “everyone is welcome” is not always enough.
A lot of people have been told they are welcome in rooms where they were not actually safe. They were welcome as long as they stayed quiet. As long as they were easy to understand. As long as they did not make anyone uncomfortable. As long as they made their queerness smaller, their anger softer, their grief prettier, their body less visible, their accent less noticeable, their faith less complicated, their story less inconvenient. We do not want to be that kind of room.
Not Quite Right is progressive, queer-friendly, and queer-run. That matters to us. It shapes how we read, how we edit, how we speak to contributors, and how we think about the kind of literary community we want to help build. We stand with queer and trans people. We stand with women. We stand with immigrants. We stand with disabled and neurodivergent people. We stand with people of color, working-class people, religious minorities, survivors, and anyone who has been made to feel like they had to earn their humanity before being heard.
At the same time, we believe deeply in complicated art. We like work that asks questions. We like work that gets messy. We like work that does not arrive perfectly polished, perfectly certain, or perfectly behaved. We believe literature can be strange, uncomfortable, funny, tender, angry, erotic, grieving, doubtful, political, spiritual, bodily, and unresolved. We are not afraid of difficult work.
But we do believe there is a difference between difficulty and cruelty. There is a difference between writing honestly about harm and turning harm into spectacle. There is a difference between challenging a reader and dehumanizing a person.
The name Not Quite Right comes from that familiar feeling of being a little out of place. A little too much. A little too strange. A little too soft, too loud, too queer, too emotional, too hard to categorize. We are interested in that feeling. We are interested in the poem that will not behave. The essay that changes shape halfway through. The story that does not explain itself neatly. The work that lives somewhere between genres, between identities, between certainty and doubt.
This values page is our way of saying, plainly, what kind of space we are trying to make. We will not always get everything right. No magazine does. No editor does. But we want to be clear about what we believe, what we are working toward, and what kind of harm we do not want to excuse in the name of neutrality. These values are not decoration.
They are part of how we read. Part of how we choose. Part of how we welcome. Part of how we learn.
Our Values in Brief
Not Quite Right is not only queer-friendly and queer-affirming, but queer-run. We certainly don’t exclude non-queer voices, but we put a high priority on standing with LGBTQ+ individuals.
Queer Liberation
Not Quite Right is queer-run, and queer life is not a side note here. We believe LGBTQ+ people deserve more than tolerance: safety, joy, desire, complexity, privacy, chosen family, and the freedom to exist without making themselves smaller first.
Trans Dignity and Gender Freedom
We stand with trans, nonbinary, gender-expansive, intersex, Two-Spirit, agender, genderfluid, and questioning people, plainly and without apology. We believe people have the right to name themselves, define themselves, be believed, access care, protect their privacy, and live without having their humanity treated as a debate.
Women’s Rights and Bodily Autonomy
We believe women deserve safety, freedom, pleasure, healthcare, equal pay, rest, anger, ambition, privacy, and the right to make decisions about their own lives and bodies. That includes reproductive freedom, abortion access, pregnancy care, birth care, miscarriage care, contraception, gender-affirming care, and the right to decide what family, motherhood, sexuality, work, and selfhood mean for themselves.
Anti-Racism
We believe racism is not only a matter of individual prejudice, but also a matter of systems, histories, institutions, language, publishing, and power. Not Quite Right is committed to making room for writers of color without asking them to explain, soften, translate, or package their work for a white gaze.
Immigration and Belonging
We believe borders, paperwork, accents, birthplace, and citizenship status do not determine a person’s worth. We stand with immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented people, mixed-status families, and anyone whose life has been shaped by movement, displacement, exile, or the search for safety.
Disability Justice and Accessibility
We believe disabled, chronically ill, deaf, blind, neurodivergent, and otherwise marginalized body-minds deserve access, respect, flexibility, and full participation in literary life. Accessibility is not charity to us; it is part of what it means to build a space that actually welcomes people.
Class, Labor, and Publishing Equity
We know literature is often shaped by money, time, education, connections, prestige, and who has been taught to believe they belong in literary spaces. We value working-class writers, poor writers, caregivers, self-taught writers, writers outside MFA pipelines, and anyone making art without institutional permission.
Faith, Conscience, and Pluralism
We respect people of faith, people without faith, people between faiths, and people still figuring out what they believe. We believe spiritual and religious lives can be complicated, beautiful, painful, liberating, oppressive, healing, or unresolved, and we welcome honest work that treats conscience seriously without using belief as an excuse to dehumanize others.
Free Expression Without Dehumanization
We believe in difficult, strange, uncomfortable, politically complicated, and formally disobedient work. We also believe there is a difference between challenging a reader and dehumanizing a person, and we will not excuse cruelty simply because it calls itself brave.
Survivor-Centered and Trauma-Aware Values
We care about work that speaks from grief, abuse, violence, family harm, religious trauma, bullying, assault, illness, loss, and survival, but we do not believe trauma is the price of admission. Survivors do not owe anyone perfect language, inspirational endings, public disclosure, or proof that what happened to them was bad enough to matter.
Climate, Land, and Collective Responsibility
We believe the living world matters, and that climate, land, water, extraction, pollution, migration, poverty, race, disability, and colonialism are deeply connected. We are interested in work that understands place not as scenery, but as something lived with, harmed, inherited, protected, mourned, and loved.
Privacy, Consent, and Contributor Safety
We believe contributors deserve to be treated with care, especially when their work touches identity, trauma, family, sexuality, immigration status, religion, gender history, disability, or other private realities. We will handle names, pronouns, disclosures, correspondence, and personal context with respect, and we will not treat vulnerability as something we are entitled to.
Accountability: We Are Still Learning
We will not always get everything right, and we do not want “progressive” to become a shield against correction. We are committed to listening, learning, apologizing when needed, and building a magazine whose values are not just stated, but practiced.
If you ever have any questions about these beliefs, or feel the need to clarify them, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We’re always open to an honest, good faith conversation.