The literary periodical goes online
Five Dials is a new literary magazine from Hamish Hamilton. Could this be the way that literary magazines regain an audience?
By Guardian blogger Guy Dammann, June 24, 2008 2:30 PM
The direction of my long-held envy of Sun readers is fastened principally on the facility with which their newspaper of choice can be rolled and slipped into the back pocket. In a town close to where I grew up, rolled Suns and Mirrors were worn as badges of honour, emblems of a long forgotten war between traditional and Thatcherite working class values. Although I have never actually bought the Sun, the periodical to which I have most recently subscribed rolls up very nicely indeed, though there its similarity with the Currant Bun ends.
Five Dials is in fact an internet-distributed literary magazine, published semi-officially from the editorial office of Hamish Hamilton. Distributed as a black and white, 18-page pdf document, freely available to download and also circulated among a fast-growing network (1,000, already, in advance of the e-zine's launch this weekend), you can read it on your computer screen or print it out, roll it up and - thanks to Hamish Hamilton's rather pleasing logo (which is, by the way, the sole graphical evidence of corporate involvement in the project) - wear it with pride on your way to the coffee shop.
Read Guy Dammann's full piece here.
Five Dials is a new literary magazine from Hamish Hamilton. Could this be the way that literary magazines regain an audience?
By Guardian blogger Guy Dammann, June 24, 2008 2:30 PM
The direction of my long-held envy of Sun readers is fastened principally on the facility with which their newspaper of choice can be rolled and slipped into the back pocket. In a town close to where I grew up, rolled Suns and Mirrors were worn as badges of honour, emblems of a long forgotten war between traditional and Thatcherite working class values. Although I have never actually bought the Sun, the periodical to which I have most recently subscribed rolls up very nicely indeed, though there its similarity with the Currant Bun ends.
Five Dials is in fact an internet-distributed literary magazine, published semi-officially from the editorial office of Hamish Hamilton. Distributed as a black and white, 18-page pdf document, freely available to download and also circulated among a fast-growing network (1,000, already, in advance of the e-zine's launch this weekend), you can read it on your computer screen or print it out, roll it up and - thanks to Hamish Hamilton's rather pleasing logo (which is, by the way, the sole graphical evidence of corporate involvement in the project) - wear it with pride on your way to the coffee shop.
Read Guy Dammann's full piece here.
1 comment:
Thank you for this link - I went strait away and down-loaded it. I think Amazon has chosen a very unfortunate time to try and play the bully with the publishing houses. They are becoming savvy enough to fond ways to reach their readers - over and beyond that giant machine. I have stated ordering my books from Waterstone's.
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