Beyond the Hall of Mirrors

lower case highlights events, new releases, & publishes short reviews. Our focus is on micro press, radical publishers, and events from independent bookshops. Plus other stuff. Readers & bookshop events suggestions welcome.

Fresh from the latest revelations about the state of social media (Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors), you might find the need for some soul-cleansing and a bit of a detox. So here’s the lowercase top ten recommendations for analogue magazines, literary journals and publications of great new writing from all over…

Gutter says it is ‘Scotland’s leading literary magazine, publishing new fiction, essays and poetry.’
It publishes twice a year in print, but you can follow them on Substack at the Gutter Press here.  See Fishing in Moominland by Dan Richards — Gutter

Here’s Waxwing, an indie lit mag from the US. Dip into the deep back catalogue here. Waxwing currently accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations.

Extra Teeth have had a bit of a re-launch and a re-design for their tenth issue, which, given the poverty of funding in Scotia and the costs of production, is a remarkable thing in itself.  Check them out in print here. Or on Substack here. If I have one criticism of the scene here it’s that Extra Teeth and Gutter seem to be covering a lot of the same ground.

The Madrid Review

The Madrid Review is a bilingual literary and arts magazine based in Madrid (funily enough). It calls itself the ‘first free literary magazine in Spain.’ It publishes poetry and prose in Spanish and English.  Issue 6 – Publishes Worldwide November 28th. Check it out here: The Madrid Review

Splinter Journal is in its infancy. It’s a beautifully designed literary mag based in Adelaide, Australia, that knows where it is (Splinter acknowledges that we publish from the traditional Country of the Kaurna people) but also has a lively sense of chaos.

‘Splinter is a new literary journal that is interested in the gaps between perception and reality and what happens when we get stuck in those gaps.’

Irish Pages

The magnificent Irish Pages is edited by Chris Agee, with a Scotland Editor in our own Kathleen Jamie. It’s a journal of contemporary writing – frequently eyed with envy as the review journal Scotland doesn’t have.

IRISH PAGES is a non-partisan, non-sectarian, culturally ecumenical, and wholly independent journal. It seeks to create a novel literary space in the North adequate to the unfolding cultural potential of the new political dispensation. The magazine is cognisant of the need to reflect in its pages the various meshed levels of human relations: the regional (Ulster), the national (Ireland and Britain), the continental (the whole of Europe), and the global.

Read it / subscribe here.

Little Engines started in 2001, publishing a mix of fiction, comics, interviews, photos, essays, and more. It sort of feels like something out of a Dave Eggers novel “We are always open for stories, essays, poems, photos, and comics. We do not consider previously published work. We are not open for book-length manuscripts at this time unless you have a sick book.”

Highly recommended: Little Engines

Speaking of Dave Eggers the McSweeney’s Internet Tendency remains brilliant, though I was sorry to see Nick Hornby writing for them. Publishing ‘daily humour almost every day since 1998’ McSweeney’s latest issue includes a ‘Post-Dinner Interview with the Uncle Who Was Demoted to the Kids’ Table at Thanksgiving’ and ‘I Work For an Evil Company, but Outside Work, I’m Actually a Really Good Person’.

They also publish The Believer – a magazine, its co-editor Heidi Julavits wrote in 2003, that urges readers and writers to “reach beyond their usual notions of what is accessible or possible”. In 2004, the critic Peter Carlson praised the magazine’s essays as “highbrow but delightfully bizarre”.

Dive in: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

The Drouth

The Drouth was founded by Johnny Rodger and Mitch Miller as a quarterly magazine way back in 2001. They say: “We continue to pursue our original remit, to give space to writers and artists to stimulate debate on literature, film, politics, reportage, visual culture, music, and architecture.” And so they do.

Check out their vast archive of material and a ton of reviews: The Drouth – The Drouth Online is Scotland’s weekly web journal for literature, art, politics and informed critical commentary.