Coming Soon: A Beecher’s One retrospective.
Our first contest has closed, and our guest judges, Deb Olin Unferth and Adam Robinson, have had time to select the winners and the runners-up. We’d like to thank everyone who participated, and we hope you’ll submit again next year, when the contest re-opens. A special thanks, again, to our guest judges, who donated their time and attention to Beecher’s entrants. And, of course, congratulations to the winners!
POETRY
First Place:
Chris Garrecht-William
Dear, and Anxiety of Chances
Runner-Up:
D. Gilson
Gnostic Gospel, Soon We’ll Bury All Our Dead, and Call and Response
***
FICTION
First Place:
Josie Sigler
Sharks
Runner-Up:
Andrew Bales
I am the Sea Captain, I am Lance Armstrong, I am Tonya Harding
Although we didn’t reach our fundraising goal on Kickstarter, the Beecher’s staff has a lot to celebrate as we move into 2012. We’ve closed submissions to our first contest, and we’ve got two checks (for $500 each) waiting for the lucky winners in fiction and poetry. In addition, we’ve sold out of the first print run of Beecher’s One; all existing orders will be filled, but the only way to get a copy of the issue now is to join us at AWP 2012 in Chicago. We’ll be holding an off-site reading on Friday, March 2nd, at 6 p.m., or you can buy a copy at our book fair booth. We hope to see you there.
We’d love to reprint the excellent content from Beecher’s One, perhaps in a perfect-bound edition of some kind, but right now we have no concrete plans to do so, because we’re focused on reading manuscripts for Beecher’s second installment. The new issue is ambitious, and we’re excited about working on it. We want it to be as creative and as high-quality as the first one was. Stay tuned to this website (or to our Facebook page) for updates and news.
Sincerely,
~the editors
We need your help! Beecher’s has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help us pay the cost of reprinting Beecher’s One and for printing Beecher’s second issue. We’ll also be using the money to pay for travel to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2012 Conference in Chicago.
Please, if you can give even $1, click this link and help us continue our journal.
***
For those of you who took advantage of the HTMLGIANT discount on Beecher’s One, we want to hear from you as part of the Literary Magazine Club (LMC) discussion. What do you think of Beecher’s?
Join the conversation at HTMLGIANT.
See what people are saying so far:
“Aside from the care that has gone into crafting a gorgeous physical object, one of the first things I noticed about the issue was the absence of individual story or poem titles from the table of contents page. I would be curious to find out if this was purely a design consideration – although the stepped, descending author names make for an incredibly crisp layout, it also gives the impression of privileging the writer above their work.”
“Reading Beecher’s is [...] a physical experience[.]”
“The content in this issue is fantastic, but I’ll reiterate what’s already been said about the fantastic production quality/value of this first issue. I didn’t even notice the riffle on the the cover until like, a week ago.”
“The tactile feel of the book is the first thing I noticed, and its production is really interesting. This is a refreshingly minimalist and physical object — a wonderful break for those of us who spend our entire days in front of the computer.”
Every month our managing editor, Caitlin Thornbrugh, writes a column on the triumphs and challenges of Beecher’s for Portal del Sol’s “The First Year” series. This month, she speaks to Dan Rolf, design editor, and reflects on the way Beecher’s editorial board approached the question of design.
She writes: “We hope that to know Beecher’s One is to hold it in your hands, run a fingerprint down the thread in the spine, see the black typeface imprinted into the white sheets, leave a fingerprint on the pages. We hope that our greatest triumph was to create an intimate, unique experience through the combination of writing and design.”
Read the Full Article online at Portal del Sol: Web del Sol.
Dan Rolf, Beecher’s Design Editor, on creating the first issue:
“The book has a naked spine and rigid, toothy, absorbent white paper that is meant to show evidence of the reader by literally absorbing and recording the reading experience: the hands holding the book, the fingers on the page, the bending of turned pages, the weakening of the unprotected spine. This recording of a reader’s interaction happens with every well-used book, but with Beecher’s One we wanted to lay bare this interaction, allow the recording of the interaction to become the adornment.”
Caitlin Frances Thornbrugh was born and raised in Kansas City. She studied Creative Writing and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas. She decided to stay in Lawrence to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing, where she is now working as the Managing Editor for Beecher’s.
We’re pleased to announce that Beecher’s One will be part of HTMLGIANT’s new Literary Magazine Club; the discussion starts November 1st. If you want to participate, you’re eligible to order Beecher’s One at 40% through our secure portal (available on the original post at HTMLGIANT). Or, if you know the password, click here.
Special thanks to Roxane Gay and Beecher’s Asst. Managing Editor Jason Robberson for organizing all of this.
The discussion of Beecher’s debut issue will start on November 1, so you’ll have enough time to read and think about the issue. If you’re interested in writing a guest post or some other feature related to this issue of Beecher’s, get in touch by e-mailing me, again, at roxane at htmlgiant.com. Topics you might consider discussing include the design, content, overall aesthetic, whether the magazine met your expectations, if the debut is promising, what the magazine contributes to the literary scene, etc. You might also do an in-depth analysis of one writer’s work, etc. There are no limits.
There’s also a Google Group with light posting about literary magazines and club announcements. If you want to join the group or want more information about the LMC, where to get your leather jacket and tattoo, etc, send me an e-mail. To summarize: however you want to participate please get in touch or watch this space in November when hopefully, we’ll have a great discussion about an interesting new literary magazine.
Recent Comments