Verity La is an on-line creative arts journal, publishing short fiction and poetry, cultural comment, photomedia, reviews and interviews.
Source: Verity La website, www.verityla.com (sighted 05/12/2012)
'Verity La' is an abbreviation of 'Verity Lane', a hidden back-alley in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, where the journal was born.
Source: Verity La website, www.verityla.com (sighted 05/12/2012)
In May 2020, Verity La published a non-fiction piece called 'About Lin', by Stuart Cooke.
This piece was subject to grave condemnation from the arts sector in Australia, on the grounds that it reproduced stereotypical notions of Filipina women, without seriously critiquing power imbalances and the residual effects of colonialism and imperialism.
Verity La originally maintained the piece, with an addendum of a trigger warning and an author's note (neither sighted by AustLit).
After the resignations as board members of Eileen Chong and David Stavanger, the piece was removed, and Verity La published a notice saying, '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.'
In the same notice, the periodical announced a break from publishing:
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.
Sources:
'Statement from Verity La', Verity La, 29 June 2020 (https://verityla.com/2020/06/29/statement-from-verity-la/).
'Verity La Announces Publishing Break, Apologises for "Grave Error",' Books + Publishing, 7 July 2020 (https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/07/07/153072/verity-la-announces-publishing-break-apologises-for-grave-error/).
