This issue marks 20 years of Halfway Down the Stairs! That’s 1,375 pieces published, drawn from 8,180 submissions, over 72 issues, with over 100,000 readers. The whole thing has been done on a shoestring, so how did we get started, and how have we continued so long?
Our story starts several years before we published a single thing, in 2003, when several of us met in the depths of internet forums. We all liked writing and we wanted to do more of it, so we started a writing group which we called “the Inklings”, shamelessly plagiarising Tolkien and Lewis, and gathering more members over time. By 2005 we had a solid membership of five, with Stacy Brazalovich, Francesca Leung, Alison Stedman, Victoria Punch, and Leah Wickman.
At this point, Stacy had the idea to start our own online magazine. We were fortunate that Francesca had the skills to help us do this (creating one’s own website was still something that was relatively difficult and potentially overwhelming, at the time), and we came up with a plan. It would be a themed, biennial publication, and we would take submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, interviews and reviews – always introduced by an editor’s note. We also brainstormed some ideas and (after voting) decided to call it Halfway Down the Stairs.
Our first issue was published on September 1, 2005, and was themed “Enchanté”. The editorial team wrote everything in it, and we went from there. People started reading our work, and slowly, we started to receive submissions. From that early start, we’ve grown and grown – for example, from only six submissions in March 2006, to around 1000 submissions a year. In 2019, we moved onto WordPress, and our statistics show we’ve grown from a readership of around 6500 at that point, to over 40,000 per annum more recently.
We’re so grateful for the efforts of all our editors — 17 in total, joining us from 2006 until the more recent past (Carrie Bachler, Sherri Miller, Joseph Murphy, Ashley Vemuri, Roxanna Bennett, Chloe N. Clark, Haley Dean, Milena Nigam, Sarah Wilkinson, Jeannie E. Roberts, Phillip Watts Brown, and Ellen Herbert). We’ve been an international team, hailing from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom respectively. We have also all been volunteers, and every single editor has put in so much work, without ever being paid for their efforts. Some of us have shared our highlights – as displayed below.
We are also so incredibly grateful to the trust placed in us by our authors, published and unpublished, and drawn from all over the world. Without you, our ‘zine could not have made it this far. We would love to hear if you have any highlights in your experiences with Halfway Down the Stairs! You can get in touch via halfway . stairs @ gmail . com.
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Starting HDtS was a wild time. I had no idea what I was doing—as a writer, as an editor, and as a web developer. I learned a ton from my fellow founding editors, and if I was any good at writing or editing, it’s largely thanks to their feedback and guidance. It’s almost a little startling to know that, two decades later, HDtS is still going strong without me (though I’m glad that all traces of my early web development days have long been erased!).
Francesca Leung, poetry editor, 2005-2010
HDtS has woven itself into my life — over half of my existence has now been spent in the rhythm of its submissions window! I was just a kid when we started out, really; a kid who dreamed of becoming an author someday but loved to read even more. A highlight for me is the friendships I’ve made with editors and authors all around the world, who I would never otherwise have met. I particularly remember the kindness of the editorial team when, very soon after we started, my mother passed away, and they dedicated an issue of HDtS (Wanderlust, March 2006) to her memory. My experience here has represented the best the internet has to offer – global human connection, empathy, and creativity.
alison stedman, fiction editor, 2005-present
HDtS was a heady, immersive time for me ~ so much writing! So much reading of writing! The extravagant joy of gulping down poem after poem, looking for after-taste, feeling the impact of each one, holding them all and looking to see which would fit the issue best. The process of choosing and editing is a particular delight and it was a privilege to be a part of the team in the morphing from The Inklings to the internet.
victoria punch, poetry editor, 2005-2008
I joined HDtS in 2006 when I was just out of college, where I had focused on creative writing. I spent a lot of my time back then writing short stories and working on a novel, with ambitions to be an author as my profession. These days my work life is in a very different place (I work with data now, and I actually enjoy it!), but Halfway Down the Stairs? It’s still here for me! Working as a fiction editor with HDtS has kept me connected to my love of writing in such an awesome way for nineteen years now. I really have fun reading the submissions for each issue, stumbling upon *perfectly* written lines that catch my breath and beautiful stories that embody the essence of the theme that we are trying to explore. And it has been a true joy to hang out alongside the rest of the amazing HDtS editorial team over the years in our little internet nook. What a privilege it has all been!
carrie bachler, fiction editor, 2006-present
I came to know HDtS by meeting founding editor Francesca Leung. She invited me to apply to HDtS as a contributor and editor, which I did. On September 1st 2008, editor Stacy Wennstrom in her Editor’s Note for our Bon Appetit! issue welcomed me to HDtS, my home away from home ever since.
sherri miller, fiction editor, 2007-present
My 17 years of happy memories at HDtS include publishing fiction entries, writing several editor’s notes, and writing both fiction and nonfiction book reviews. Even more exciting for me was watching the growth of our readers and the inspiration from contributing writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Soon we began receiving submissions from all over the world, and were even contacted by a foreign school teacher who informed us that she chose our web site activities as a writing project for her students.
On May 17, 2018, poetry editor Joe Murphy reached out to me to see if I would be interested in joining the editorial team. After completing a questionnaire, providing samples of my poetry, etc., on June 1st, I was officially brought on board as a poetry editor. Joe and I worked together for a period of time; he offered his knowledge and assistance before retiring from his editorship of eight years. I enjoy my role at Halfway Down the Stairs, and believe it is an honor to read the work of other poets and to be a part of a talented and dedicated team of volunteers.
jeannie e. roberts, poetry editor, 2018-present
I joined Halfway Down the Stairs in May of 2021. I had previously had a poem published in the June 2020 issue, and I remember appreciating the quality of the work and the style of the website (not all online magazines are good looking!). I followed the journal, and when the call for a second poetry editor was published, I submitted my application. It’s been a pleasure to work alongside Jeannie as we consider the many submissions. I find it both satisfying and instructive to be on this side of the publishing process—there’s the joy in finding true gems in the pile, and the breadth of writing encourages me to hone my own poetic craft.
phillip watts brown, poetry editor, 2021-present
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© 2025, Halfway Down the Stairs
Halfway Down the Stairs 