Little mags, big ideas

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10 April 2012

Far back in history in 2008, the scintillating design of a new flagship store or the It-bag backlit on a pedestal within it could provided pulse-quickening excitement.

Yet the slick limestone-clad store that once got us so hot under the collar now makes us anxious. The recession has thrown up different cultural tastes.

All of a sudden, London's small specialist bookshops like Artwords at the Whitechapel Gallery, like John Sandoe in Blackland's Terrace or Taschen at Duke of York's Square have become vibrant attractions for a widening crowd of interesting people.

There's a sense that these bookshops have got something that might satisfy a growing craving. Along the rows of individually chosen books lies the promise of new ideas, transformational seeds.

It's not just in these lovely bookshops that the atmosphere is becoming piping hot. Specialist publications are on the up, and some of them come online with an extraordinary community in their wake.

There are many literary magazines dense with nourishing brain food: Granta, Tin House, the Paris Review, Poets & Writers, The London Review of Books, Smithsonian Magazine, The Believer - it's a long list. But All-Story, a monthly magazine coming out of Francis Ford Copola's Zoetrope Studios in San Francisco is special.

If you're like me, you love the fact that these periodicals exist, but rarely read more than one or two stories before being overwhelmed. There's too much to wade through and life is too short.

All-Story is different because you don't have to read every word to get a major cultural transfusion. It explodes with visuals that are as vibrant and important as the stories themselves, provided by genuine red carpet artists.

Guest Designers have included Marjane Satrapi, Dennis Hopper, David Bowie, Zaha Hadid, Chip Kidd and so on. You never know what you're going to get, but you do know it's likely to be incredible.

The Winter 08 issue designed by Lou Reed in landscape format featured a whole series of experimental photographs that he took on his travels. The earlier Elizabeth Peyton issue has her drawings and paintings, interspersed with rarely seen photographs of Bob Dylan from The Bob's own archives.

The design is full of deeply personal choices and experiments, and this represents true luxury in our world of committee-decisions and market analysis.

The magazine depends on subscription to survive - there are barely any adverts, though Marc Jacobs always has a very groovy double page advert at the start of each issue. The writing is a seductive mix of big and breaking names: Margaret Atwood, Woody Allen, Rachel Cusk and David Mamet are interspersed with newcomers.

The editor Michael Ray, managing editor Krista Halverson and Coppola's founding co-editor Adrienne Brodeur are the team behind this exhilarating little publication.

Coppola himself is often too busy with film projects (for instance he's currently away working on his new film Tetro) to be too closely involved.

But Coppola does brainstorm possible designers with his team, and if they are friends he might work closely with them on the layout, as he did on the Helmut Newton issue.

Contributing writers submit a one-year film option and first serial rights along with their 7,000 word story, so there's a possibility that it might be made into a film.

"We try to publish stories with ambition and compelling ideas, stories that are provocative and important in some way," says the editor Michael Ray. "And then of course, each issue is designed in its entirety by a leading artist. The cumulative effect is that the magazine becomes a platform for artistic experimentation and collaboration."

A large online artistic community surrounds All-Story and it's virtual studio. There are screen and fiction writing workshops (some free online, others fee-paying at Coppola's property in Belize).

Regular readings from the magazine are performed by actors in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. The hub is in San Francisco, where they choose 24 from roughly 12,000 stories and one-act plays submitted annually.

"The magazine is headquartered on the third floor of the Sentinel Building, one of the few flatirons in San Francisco" says Krista Halverson, the managing editor.

"We have a few small offices, including a Reading Room for our ten amazing volunteers, who help us get through the hundreds of submissions we receive each week."

The current Latin American issue is designed by Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro, and guest edited by Diego Trelles Paz and Daniel Alarcon.

"Neither Krista nor I read Spanish and Portuguese; so we required collaborators who could consider the stories in their native languages" says Ray. It's seems completely to redefine the Latin American literary landscape.

I showed my copy to the film director Don Boyd over supper, and he went very quiet, his hands handling the paper as if it were a religious artefact.

Copies of this and many other issues, will be collectors' items. Watch out for the forthcoming issue designed by Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnson.

The stories in it are by Ha Jin, Pasha Malla, an unpublished early story by Kurt Vonnegut and lastly the story Coppola wrote as the basis for his new film, Tetro.

Three cool quarterlies

FILAMENT

Launching in June 2009, Filament is an intelligently written magazine designed for women.

The editor, Suraya Sighu Singh, claims there will be "no celebrity gossip or diets" and it will instead offer readers erotic images of men and talking points made entirely for the female gaze.

Circulation estimate: 5,000-10,000

Price: £6 for early subscribers, otherwise £7

Availability: hard copy available to order online, www.filamentmagazine.com

DISAPPEAR HERE

Peaches Geldof guest-edited the first issue in December 2008 and is now a contributor - she owns a third stake with James Brown of Loaded and editor Andy Varley. Each issue endorses new brands, hunts out the latest mad trends and interviews all sorts of people, from Richard Barnbrook to burlesque queens Plastic Hearts.

Circulation: 5,000 in London, 20,000 worldwide

Price: free

Availability: Rough Trade East (91 Brick Lane, E1) and Size, across London (www.size.co.uk)

MAGMA

Contemporary poetry magazine run by a small group, with occasional guest editors. Includes new and up-and-coming poets plus regular prose features and reviews. Launched in 1994 with three issues per year (OK, so it's not quite a quarterly), each new issue is unveiled at the lively, packed-out Troubadour coffee house in Earl's Court by guest poets such as veteran New Zealander Alistair Te Ariki Campbell.

Circulation: undisclosed

Price: £5.95 per issue

Availability: Borders, branches across London (www.borders.co.uk); www.magmapoetry.com

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