Introducing Madrigalia
Agnès Madrigal and Sara Parrot
Madrigalia is the online journal for Madrigalit, a writers’ collective based in San Francisco. With this, our debut article, we welcome readers into our stories, conversations, processes, and more. Here you’ll find literary fictions, extracts of draft materials, behind-the-scenes looks at some of our products, and meaningful insights from our collaborators. Welcome to Madrigalia!
Beautiful writing is blossoming at Madrigalit—and in the pages of its online journal, Madrigalia. Photograph by Raw Pixel
Agnès Madrigal: I have been writing stories for years. I write out of a genuine curiosity, an exploration. Madrigalia is like a flypaper for my thoughts, the thoughts that turn into stories—or that don’t. It is a space where some final fictions might appear and where fragments of others that never finish might also be displayed, if there’s something interesting in them to think about. It is our goal to create a space where writing can be conveyed in both its fruition and in its process. Without being too experimental, we want to offer a shared journal that captures some of the bits and pieces of a writer’s life that do not readily conform to the standard publishing genres. But we don’t mind if there are some more traditional pieces that appear along the way here, too—we intend to make space for whatever inspires us and that we think will be engaging to others. Madrigalia is, as the word (and my surname) “madrigal” implies, a complex and polyphonic piece that is often exultant and joyful.
“Madrigalia is a creative space where writing can be conveyed in both its fruition and its process. This journal offers a place for whatever might inspire us, including some of the unusual bits and pieces of a writer’s life.”
—Agnès Madrigal
Sara Parrot: I’m always writing or sketching in my journal—notes about an art show or an album, or reviews of a restaurant or a bottle of wine. Since these jottings don’t commonly align with my regular copywriting work, I haven’t really had a place to put them, but I think they have some merit, and I’ve wanted to share them. I love it that Madrigalia is a space for different kinds of writing, and that it can always grow and transform to welcome new forms and voices.
“We’ve conceived of Madrigalia as a place where all sorts of writings might live and conspire together gleefully.”
—Sara Parrot
We’ve conceived of Madrigalia as a place where all sorts of writings might live and conspire together gleefully: final vignettes that may be too short to publish formally as stories; rough drafts of early pieces or fragments of pieces never completed; interviews with each other or with our collaborators about writing and associated themes; and “duos,” which are two-part writings we create in tandem—one a non-fiction approach to a subject, and the other a fictionalized account of the same topic. (Learn more about our duos here.) We’ll add our stories to these pages as we have them, so keep checking back to find our latest musings. You can also read related stories on Madrigalit’s Medium pages.