BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Luna Luna will turn three this summer--in July, in fact. It’s a baby! That makes us think a lot about what we are doing right, what we're doing wrong, and all the in-between bits. Some people really love us (hi!), we’ve probably pissed some other people off, and more people should know who we are. And all of that’s OK. We do what we do because we believe in our focus: blending darkness and light. As we think about growth and aging, we know that we won't compromise our foundation.

We want to say that we've tried very hard to publish only the sorts of content we know our readers will adore: topics like books, poetry, sex, tarot and feminism. But we have a dedication to exploration, making room for all voices, and even playing with the uncomfortable or the unpopular. We welcome the gritty and the gorgeous, alike, and we want to keep it that way.

But what are we missing? Reply in the comments below.

We know what brings the traffic, but we steer clear of a lot of that. We don’t talk much about celebrities and we’re not, at this time, doing fashion or beauty. But is there something your heart is pining for, dearest reader? Shall we make more lists? It's OK. We will do it for you.

The Internet is a beautiful nightmare; there’s so much opportunity out there to connect with readers, but there’s also so much distraction. That’s where you come in. If you like Luna Luna, we would be honored if you shared our Facebook page and introduced us to a few new friends. If you liked us on Twitter or Instagram, that’d be amazing, too.

So, as we cast spells well into our third year, we’d love to share with you a few updates:

Love

BuzzFeed chose us as one of their 9 Girl Squads You Should Know About. This was sponsored by H&M’s Coachella, which, if you ask me, is pretty neat. I still can’t fit my breasts into half their clothing, but I’m happy about it nonetheless. In fact, it was amazing. We’re listed among some insanely talented girl squads. We urge you to check them all out.

Also, we’ve been featured in a few really cool places, like Storia, Smarty Mommies, and Women Who Submit.

Money

So, we're still not a revenue-earning site (though we’re talking of ways to monetize). We do run AdSense ads, but as everyone knows, this isn't a meal ticket. Those ads will pay our hosting and other web costs. You may see them on the site here and there. We don’t control them, so if anything bugs you and you want to send a note over, feel free. Just know that we aren’t in control of the wild ways of the Internet and so we have limited power and mean no harm.

We’re talking about creating a Patreon page and a Kickstarter to pay for certain kinds of content. It’s important that we pay writers, but we’re also realistic when we look at the failure rate of paying models. We have to think about we want this site to be and what its limitations are. And we’d love to hear from you, if you did have an opinion or idea.

Our old site

As you know, we relaunched on Halloween of last year. That was very much so a purposeful relaunch date, and we're very proud of our professionalism. The old site was experiencing daily issues: plugins going haywire, the site changing themes literally on its own. In time, malware ate away at it and Bluehost took it down. We’ve been trying to work with them, but without someone who knows how to handle this, it’s been tricky. We're just 4 people with day jobs and no tech experience. Making a magazine we love is the easy part; we weren't prepared for what could happen to a self-hosted site, but we've definitely learned from the experience. We also wanted to work with Squarespace and have a little more aesthetic control now. We’re INTO it. (Love you, Squarespace).

We’ve spent a lot of time republishing old content. We don’t want to make it difficult for writers to find their clips, and we’re sorry for the hassle. It wasn’t something we even knew how to control, and we’ve sent nearly 50 emails, social media messages and updates about it since we figured out exactly what happened. We hope you got one. We hope you're reading it now. Please send us your old work. We want to give it a loving home. <3

If you’re one of those people whose content is on the old site, resend it and we will publish it. Lunalunasubmit @ gmail.com (subject line REPUB).

Updates from our team

Lastly, our editor Lisa Marie Basile recently a brand new site-–INGENUE X--dedicated to luminous living, beautiful brands and creative lifestyle. If you like Luna Luna, then you make like that, too. Think of it as a tiny, baby sister site. Or just think of as a sister, like the younger, green-haired sister in Isabel Allende's House of Spirits.

Joanna C. Valente's book "Marys of the Sea" is forthcoming from ELJ Publications this year. Also, you read her latest poems over at Quail Bell.

You can read all of her Luna Luna articles here.

Also, Alaina made this adorable by drawing herself and then taking photos with her DSLR.

Alaina Leary's been writing a lot lately: at Her Campus about private college elitism, about sexual assault at Cosmopolitan and plenty of other places. Check her out here.

You can read her Luna Luna articles here.

Nadia Gerassimenko's book, Moonchild Dreams, is available here. She also blogs at Tepid Autumn, where she does a bunch of interviews with amazing people.

You can read all of her Luna Luna articles here.