At WordPress.com, part of our mission is to support and empower storytellers and publishers of all sizes. We’re thrilled to announce that the award-winning Atavist Magazine has moved to WordPress.com, joining its sister publication, Longreads, on the platform. Atavist is built on Newspack, a suite of features and plugins designed specifically for the needs of newsrooms and publishers.
For more than a decade, The Atavist Magazine has been a pioneer in digital storytelling, publishing one blockbuster story every month. Each story showcases a unique, sophisticated, immersive design. A nine-time National Magazine Award nominee and one-time winner — and the recipient of many other accolades — Atavist shines as a space on the web for thoughtful, deeply reported stories, and as an outlet eager to publish up-and-coming writers at a time when journalism opportunities are narrowing.
“We are thrilled to now be part of the WordPress.com ecosystem, with all the open source tools and support it provides,” says Atavist editor in chief Seyward Darby. “We just celebrated our 10th anniversary, and we can’t think of a better way to ring in a new decade of telling great stories and championing the people who create them than this move.”
Built on Newspack, an open source platform for news publications
Supported by Newspack, a publishing and revenue-generating solution for small- to medium-sized newsrooms built on WordPress, Atavist joins a network of 100 news publishers and counting, including Reveal, Sahan Journal, Hong Kong Free Press, The Oaklandside, Transitions Online, and other local and regional news outlets worldwide.
“WordPress.com’s block-based editor and Newspack’s built-in subscription, payment, and other news-focused features will power us into the future and help us grow,” says Darby. “We’re honored to join Longreads as a flagship WordPress.com publication, showcasing how flexible the world’s most popular CMS is for storytellers of all types.”
Is Newspack right for you as a publisher? Learn more or get in touch.
Just launched: a new Atavist podcast
If you’re a fan of podcasts, get a feel for Atavist’s storytelling on its first-ever narrative podcast, No Place Like Home, launching this week and available wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It’s about the theft of a pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz from a small museum in Minnesota, and the 13-year quest to get them back. Listen to a preview:
Explore the redesigned Atavist Magazine and dive in to your next great read.