Hyper Speed: starting-up (and staying up) of the new Seizure magazine [14.08.2011]

Seizure Editor-in-chief log: 14/08/2011

It’s crunch-time at Seizure magazine. Our second issue is due to go to print at the end of this month and wrangling the 14 authors and the accompanying designs is like getting a room full of toddlers to put their toys in a box and come sit on the mat. It’s within the realm of possibility but the process is messy and loud. Seizure is a journal for new writing that launched in June of this year. Our first issue was themed ‘Food’ and can be found in bookstores around the country, often in the cooking section. We have recently wrangled the digital edition online, just search ‘Seizure’ in the Apple app store.

Everyone involved in the project works full-time, one has a theatre company and another teaches cello on top, but this is a project that we’re doing for the love of it. At a time when so many people are naysaying about the future of publishing, Seizure is about showing how clever, relevant, and not to mention funny, a magazine can be.

The response to the first issue has been better than we’d hoped. Thanks to our distributors, NewSouth, we’re available in bookstores around Australia and getting feedback from different states is such a thrill. It’s the support of independent bookstores, as well as a chain like Dymocks, that have meant we’re able to reach such a wide audience.

One of the best outcomes from Seizure is the community that is building up around the publication. The magazine is a living, growing entity, as alive in the events and responses as in the magazine itself. From joining the SPUNC network to collaborating with authors and photographers and designers, we’ve all enjoyed tapping into the creatives of Sydney. Our contributors regularly read at Story Club and Penguin Plays Rough and we’ve got an event coming up at Dymocks George St on the 25 August, where five of the contributors from the first issue will be reading some of their recent work.

The second issue, ‘Sci-Fi’ will be launched in November. And it’s exactly the sort of mash-up the Seizure brains-trust was aspiring to produce. The genre has had – some might say – more than its share of finger-pointing-and-laughing; with some justification. The plots can be silly, the costumes ridiculous and its proponents can be the kind who reject showers, etiquette and respect for personal space. However it’s the classic science fiction traditions of social commentary, satire and dystopia that inform the pieces in the next issue.

Design was a crucial component of our first issue; one of the most engaging elements of the magazine is the interplay between design and words. Our designers (at Xou Creative) read the stories while they’re being edited and develop the visuals at the same time that we’re developing the text. The layout and design for ‘Food’ was a bit more straightforward; from the trompe l’oeil cover image of a plastic pie, to the photography that accompanied the internals. For ‘Sci-Fi’ this has certainly been more of a challenge, given many of the stories take place in alternate times/spaces/realms/dimensions, a photo shoot is a little tougher to coordinate. Ultimately though, the pages are coming along to be just as saturated and visually sumptuous as the first issue.

Next up, the Seizure team will be in Newcastle for the National Young Writers’ Festival in September and for the launch of our second issue we are working with the NSW Writers Centre as part of their Speculative Fiction Festival on 5 November. Details will be forthcoming.

Back to my editing for now. Keep an eye out for the next issue in your favourite local bookshop and in the meantime you can follow us on Twitter (@Seizureonline).

Alice Grundy, @alicektg, is Editor-in-chief at Seizure.

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