The poor postman is going to hate me lurking around next month, hoping for my copy. There’s something magical about seeing your words printed in a publication, but it’s beyond surreal when you know someone has spent time creating an illustration to complement your work. I’m so excited to announce that my poem ‘ Disperse’ is going to be published in issue 29 of Popshot Quarterly, available in August! With the apt theme Freedom, it may just be what everyone needs to read after lockdown. Let’s just hope there will be people who can afford to buy them.You know that whole love at first sight thing? I would agree in most instances that it’s a load of rubbish, but coming across an illustrated literary magazine like Popshot Quarterly makes you think otherwise.Ĭhampioning poetry that isn’t ‘fusty’ or completely disregarding its audience, Popshot combines accessible poetry with vibrant illustrations for an all-round gorgeous magazine, and has been hailed ‘the new face of British poetry’ in the process.Ĭheck out some of their previous published writing and art here, or buy some of their issues to light up your eyes and your bookcase. As long as I can, I’ll be printing issues of Bad Form, filled with words by writers of colour. Working on Bad Form is a privilege, but it is also exciting, fun and, as Sparrow said a decade ago, provides an essential place for authors to have a space to raise their voices. They give weight to voices that are all too often ignored by the mainstream publishing industry. For unpublished, radical writers, they can be life-changing. Print editions of literary magazines are important. Take on more advertising! Who wants to read a literary magazine that’s full of ads? And why not just cancel the print issue?, which always makes me sad. More subscription content! Who’s going to write it? I have a full-time job. Well-meaning people are always keen to suggest ideas about how to fund the magazine. Goodreads members who liked Popshot Magazine: the Ide. So, instead of closing down completely, I have shut down our regular online content, so I can focus on events, community building and print issues. Find books like Popshot Magazine: the Identity Issue from the world’s largest community of readers. And as costs rise for everyone, it doesn’t feel fair for me not to be paying our contributing writers more, too. Even X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced its plans to start charging us to use its service, which would be a critical blow. The cost of Royal Mail postage to ship the print issues has gone up. The cost of printing magazines has grown astronomically. What was a volunteer-run project, supported by my internship wages at the time and the support of other young people of colour, has grown into a magazine that has sold thousands of copies, pays all its writers and illustrators and throws regular events.īut last week, I had to announce that I couldn’t do it any more. In this time, we’ve published 11 print issues, reviewed hundreds of books and given a platform to writers of colour including Bernardine Evaristo, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Sheena Patel. I founded Bad Form four years ago, a books magazine by and about writers of colour, in an attempt to rectify the horrifying lack of media coverage for the few writers of colour who are published in the UK. It is, to say the least, a depressing time to be a fan of literary magazines. The cultural phenomenon that was gal-dem, the magazine by women of colour, which provided a huge amount of literary coverage over the years, closed earlier this year, and the beautifully illustrated literary magazine Popshot Quarterly has announced its move to solely online editions due to “recent increases in production costs” meaning the print issues are “no longer viable”. The White Review, one of the mainstays of the past decade, announced last month that it would cease publishing “ for an indefinite period” as it failed to receive Arts Council England funding for three years in a row. This is a discussion that feels more relevant now than ever in the context of the UK’s crumbling literary magazine scene. He also acknowledged that they cannot survive on issue sales and subscriptions alone. Ten years ago, Jeff Sparrow, editor of Overland, which describes itself as Australia’s only radical literary magazine, wrote an article in this newspaper entitled What’s the point of literary magazines? In it, he argued that literary magazines not only promote new writers, but provide a space to publish authors who “have something to say that’s not being heard”.
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