An On-Line Presence for Seventh Quark Literary Magazine which will republish some pieces from the Print Magazine and post News.
posted by Alex Keegan at 7:58 am
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Alex Keegan launched Seventh Quark Magazine out of frustration, frustration at a market which seemed more intent on "filler" than quality.
He asked, "How much of any literary magazine do you actually READ? Not cover to cover? Why is that?
And of what you read, what do you remember?
Why is so little UK short-fiction resonant and memorable?
He argued that too many editors were more interested in feeding the trivial desires for more me-too fiction than in showing what fiction could be.
He said (and was lambasted by one reviewer for it):
"Running a literary magazine is not about giving readers what they want.
It's about showing them what is possible."
The result has been three issues in the time he hoped to publish five (but where is the quality material?) and some very expensive lessons.
Only by running many, many small competitions has 7Q managed to (partly) fund itself.
It is not difficult to "fill" Seventh Quark. The difficulty is filling it with material that actually MEANS something,
We have been greatly helped by the kindness of many great writers. George Saunders, Steve Almond, Peter James, Emma Darwin, Alice Elliott Dark. Gina Ochsner, Jim Crace, Karl Iagnemma, Tim Lott, Will Self, Curtis White and Fay Weldon plus excellent work from break-out writers and first-timers, along with, of course, our competition winners.
We will publish Issue 4 in January/February 2006 and will continue to seek only genuinely interesting work.
If you are a prize-winning author, we are actively seeking reprints of winning stories to publish as examples for aspiring writers.
