Looking Back. Looking Forward.
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So as the dust settles on New Year’s Eve here in Berlin, the pavements strewn with the debris of a million fireworks and the first of the abandoned Christmas trees, I thought it was about time we had a little look back on the first year of Elsewhere as well as a look forward to what is to come in 2016. It is just over a year since Julia and I first announced the project and then we began the process of working on the successful crowdfunding campaign that took place during April and May, Elsewhere No.01 which we published in June, and Elsewhere No.02 that came out in September.
These are the cornerstones of the year but they tell nothing of the story. We learned so much over the past twelve months, not only when it comes to journal production but also marketing, distribution and all those elements that you need to get a project like this off the ground. We had issues with printers, worked with lovely (and professional) writers, illustrators and photographers, and added some people to our team. Tim has been invaluable when it comes to editing; Marcel as our Books Editor; Corinne working on sponsorship to help move the project forward; and Katrin, helping us out with the events.
We need to especially thank those people as up to now all of us who have worked on Elsewhere during the first year have done so for love of the project. Although we made a commitment to pay our contributors from the beginning and have done so, we have not been able yet to pay the rest of us… which makes their commitment all the more impressive and our gratitude for their hard work all the greater!
As for contributors, it has been our great privilege to publish some wonderful writers, artists, photographers and musicians over the past twelve months. In the pages of Elsewhere No.01 and No.02 you can see the work of the following fantastic, talented people:
Kavita Bedford, Gary Budden, Stephen Cracknell, Nicky Gardner, Julian Hoffman, Chandler O’Leary, Eve Richens and Paul Sullivan
Alejandro Cartagena, Nick Gadd, Stuart Fowkes, Satya Gummuluri, Paula Kirby, Amy Liptrot, Laurence Mitchell and the good folks from the Uckermarker Project
You can find many of our contributors on our Twitter list here
What else? Beyond the physical journal that is, and remains, the centrepiece of the project, we have also been publishing interviews and short writings on place on our blog. There we have also established the Library series of book reviews from work that has inspired and interested us, and the Printed Matters series of posts about other print projects that we feel worthy of support. Tied to the latter was our first Printed Matters event, held in December, and we hope to take the Printed Matters idea beyond our home city during the coming year. Another event we hosted was our launch event in June, and again, we are hoping to host more events in Berlin and beyond in the coming twelve months.
We would also love to return to #IndieMagDay, which we attended in Hamburg at the end of the summer, and build our connections with other journals, magazines and independent publishers out there. Although there is much doom and gloom about print, we are convinced that there has never been a better time to launch a project such as ours. The internet means we can reach readers and contributors quickly and directly, and people can support the projects they like from their own home. The challenge, as ever, is to make it sustainable and that will be the major focus of 2016 alongside producing two more editions of the journal.
The next edition of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place will come out in March, with the contents already finalised as follows:
Places…
Black Mountain, Northern Ireland by Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh
Berlin, Germany by Paul Scraton
Faversham Creek, England by Caroline Miller
Iqualuit, Canada by Knut Tjensvoll Kitching
Kumano Kodo, Japan by Laurence Mitchell
Lappland, Sweden by Saskia Vogel
Trieste, Italy by Paul Scraton
Yangon, Myanmar by Alex Cochrane
Plus…
An interview with Darran Anderson, author of Imaginary Cities
Endbahnhof: The photography of Kate Seabrook
...and more illustrations and reviews
We will begin pre-orders closer to the publication date, but you can of course take out a 4-issue subscription to guarantee your copy. We are also looking for patrons for the third edition, so if you are interested in supporting the journal and seeing your name on the inside cover, please follow the link for more information.
Finally, and most importantly, both Julia and I would really like to thank all the readers who have supported the journal, whether via the crowdfunding, buying individual editions, reading the blog or newsletter, or sharing our posts and links on social media… it all helps and we really wouldn’t have got this far without you.
Have a great 2016, and here’s to more adventures in Elsewhere,
Paul Scraton
Editor in Chief
January 2016
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Photo by Patricia Haas (post@patpat-studio.com)