Wildfire Journal
Welcome to Wildfire Journal.
You’re stepping into a place unlike any other: we are the first journal BY and FOR young people with breast cancer. That means the images and stories you find here matter. A lot.
Wildfire is a literary journal specifically designed with you, the young breast cancer survivor and thriver, in mind. Our contributors are all diagnosed under the age of 50 — a growing population decades younger than the average person to experience breast cancer — with few age-appropriate resources available.
Our belief is that reading the stories of others diagnosed young provides a much-needed community and support network. We go further than that, though, and help you learn to tell your own story to the survivors coming up behind you. This has the dramatic effect of turning a traumatic cancer experience into an empowering one!
Each issue of Wildfire contains written and visual work from younger survivors just like you from all over the world, including all stages of diagnosis from DCIS/Stage 0 to metastatic breast cancer/Stage IV. Each issue of the magazine is on a theme related to survivorship, which we define as every day (every minute) you face following diagnosis.
Subscription Options
Enjoy a lush experience of Wildfire Journal by opting for print along with full access to our complete digital archives. Our journal is sized perfectly for on-the-go, or on your bedside table. A portion of each new subscription is donated to support Stage IV / MBC research. We support METAvivor and The Cancer Couch Foundation.
Enjoy a paper-free, digital subscription to Wildfire Journal. Read wherever, whenever. Receive the latest issues as they come out as well as the complete archives. A portion of each new subscription is donated to support Stage IV / metastatic breast cancer research. We support METAvivor and The Cancer Couch Foundation.
Learn about how proceeds from every Wildfire subscription help support research of metastatic breast cancer (MBC).
FAQs
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It's a good question. Some organizations follow the Adolescent & Young Adult model of cancer care and define young as being diagnosed with breast cancer between the ages of 15 and 39. Others move the mark slightly to encompass ages 20 to 45ish. April created this magazine when she was diagnosed at 35 in 2012 and there were next to zero resources for her: someone diagnosed with a nursing baby, someone facing menopause early, someone diagnosed without significant savings or retirement and still trying to work, etc. She said, “I feared not seeing my child enter high school and mourned the loss of my fertility. I wanted a space to hear stories from others in the same stage of life (20s, 30s, 40s) who could relate to my grief.” Over the years since then, although we publish people diagnosed 50 and below (who can be any age now), our readers and workshop participants are a mix of ages who can relate to the “younger” issues we discuss here. Breast cancer at 25 is different from being diagnosed at 55. We believe we need places to talk about the differences. No matter your age now, if you were diagnosed under 50 or can relate to the “younger” breast cancer community, we encourage you to join us.
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You can find Wildfire Journal through a subscription, in our online shop, and at select stockists and cancer libraries/resource centers.
(Already a subscriber? Click here!)
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It's true, there is a lot of free "information" available on the Internet. A Google search on the topic of breast cancer will turn up hundreds of thousands of hits from medical sites to blogs to marathons to pink spatulas. It can be overwhelming, and also hard to sort through the BS. At Wildfire, we aren't interested in contributing to the noise. We are, instead, interested in getting straight to the truth: sharing deeply personal, 100% real, heartfelt stories and experiences that will inform and validate your own experience. In order to create a safe place where contributors can bare themselves this way (sometimes quite literally), it is necessary to put a lock on the door. Just as you would to protect any precious possession.
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Yes! You can find more information on how to submit essays, poems, art and photography here.
Find Us In Stores
California
Bookshop Santa Cruz | Santa Cruz
Katz Cancer Resource Center | Santa Cruz
Two Birds Books | Santa Cruz
WomenCARE | Soquel
North Carolina
Betty by Moxie Merchantile | Charlotte
New York
As We Are Now | Buffalo
Oregon
Remember the Moon | Springfield
Are you a shop owner who would like to wholesale Wildfire Journal? We’d love to work with you directly. Please send us a note at editor@wildfirecommunity.org.