About Us
What is Archetype?
Archetype is a Toronto-based literary journal that strives to publish creative work—essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and reviews—that reminds us of what it’s like to be made of flesh. The journal is committed to being a platform for both emerging and established writers and artists to tell stories that celebrate life, explore human connection, and investigate the idea of being alive. Ultimately, our goal is to publish work that is honest, real, and illuminating.
Our Story
Archetype: A Literary Journal began as a joint concept between two friends, writers, and editors, Ali Taha and Melissa Barrientos.
During the summer of 2021, while traveling along the coast of Nova Scotia, Ali and Melissa began discussing Carl Jung and his idea of the archetype, a set pattern of behaviour shared collectively, passed down by our ancestral heritage, and discovered through the myths, stories, and art of the species.
As they sat around a campfire one night, Ali and Melissa thought about the connection between archetypes and art. Working through Jung’s writing on archetypes, they learned how the passing down of archetypes, as well as the act of discovering archetypes, is symbolic in nature. A symbol, the visual or linguistic representation of an idea, illuminates the inherent significance of things to us. Through the use, discovery, and creation of symbols in their work, the artist is driven to make sense of life. Archetype was born as a way to support that drive.
Our guiding ethos is driven by the wonderful words of Carl Jung: “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
The artist, in their search for meaning, grasps at the elusive and ineffable, brushing against the archetypal and projecting symbolic significance onto what they create, identify, and discover.
Archetype is our attempt to make meaning out of life and its symbols, and to unite through one of the best ways we know how—art.
Our hope is that the work at the heart of this journal kindles that “light in the darkness of mere being” and illuminates the unique and varied range of human existence.
Archetype is published twice a year.