Dear all,
Verity La is deeply sorry and apologises unreservedly for a work of creative non-fiction that we published last month.
We fully accept that, in its depiction of Filipino women, the work contained racism, sexism, misogyny and disablism, and it was therefore grossly offensive. We acknowledge that it caused deep harm. We made a grave error in leaving the piece on the journal’s website after that harm had been drawn to our attention. It has been removed from the website and will not be republished by Verity La in any form.
We have never wished to do any harm. We accept that we have caused harm.
We failed badly.
We also acknowledge the harm caused by the tweets that targeted particular writers of colour and for the blocking of POC voices. Although those offensive tweets do not reflect our core beliefs or intentions, we accept full responsibility for them.
We thank the literary community for your engagement, feedback, and advice. We know we have a lot of learning to do.
As of now Verity La is taking a break from publishing so we can reflect on the ways in which the journal has been complicit with systemic racism, sexism and disablism. We will take the time to review all our governance, editorial, publishing, and social media processes.
We can do better. We will do better.
Yours sincerely,
Verity La