Why I Made The Gather Journal
My journal is not Magnolia. It is not Southern Living. But it is mine. Completely, wholly, beautifully mine. And that is everything.
I have always dreamed of working for an editorial company.
Magnolia. Southern Living. Something beautiful and story-driven where creativity and words and imagery all come together into something you can hold in your hands. I could picture myself there so clearly — sitting around a table with other creative women, building something that mattered, making pages that made people feel something. That version of me felt so real.
But somewhere along the way I made peace with the fact that it probably wasn't my path. I’m happily a jewelry maker in the Shenandoah Valley, not an editor in some fancy office. So I put that dream in a drawer and kept making earrings.
And then one day a thought stopped me in my tracks.
Why can't I just make my own magazine?
What was actually stopping me?
I turned that question over for a long time. I didn't have a publishing background. I wasn't a trained writer. I had never designed a magazine before. Every reason not to do it was sitting right there, lined up neatly, waiting to talk me out of it.
But underneath all of those reasons was something else. A desire that had been sitting quietly for years, waiting for me to stop making excuses and start making something.
So I did.
Page by page. Word by word. Season by season. I wrote essays I had never allowed myself to write before — about the dogwood tree my dad planted, about the shy girl I used to be, about the small morning ritual that makes me feel whole before I walk out the door. I reached out to women in this community and asked them to share their own stories. I built a space where other makers and creators and small women-owned businesses could have their moment in these pages. Where the heart behind this jewelry brand could finally breathe a little more fully.
Here is what I know now, having created that first issue.
My journal is not Magnolia. It is not Southern Living. It doesn't have a team of editors or a photography studio or a national distribution deal. It is made by one woman in the Shenandoah Valley who decided that waiting for permission was costing her more than the leap ever could.
But it is mine. Completely, wholly, beautifully mine.
And that is everything.
If you have an idea that feels too big —
A dream you've quietly filed away because you don't have the right credentials or the right resources or enough certainty that it will work — I want you to hear this. You don't have to do it perfectly. You don't have to do it the way someone else would. You just have to start.
The Gather Journal — Issue One — arrives May 23rd. It is a seasonal journal about belonging, becoming, and the beauty of showing up as exactly who you are. And it exists because one day I stopped waiting and started building.