AustLit
THE MAN BEHIND THE BROW
The Lifted Brow, Sam Cooney
Abstract art, literary pieces, poems, commentary and even a stream of comics runs through the pages of this magazine. Its bright and bold colours of the front cover are so eye-catching that it’s hard to miss. You’ve probably heard of them before and you will hear of them again.
Introducing The Lifted Brow, a literary magazine founded in 2007 that champions works from Australia and around the world. Over a decade, they have established a formidable base of readers. In 2016, they also launched their own imprint, Brow Books.
So, who exactly runs The Lifted Brow? Well, meet Sam Cooney; the man behind it all. Sam is the publisher and now the current director of The Lifted Brow Society. Speaking via a phone call from Melbourne, Sam gave a deeper insight to the literary magazine itself and what The Lifted Brow represented as well.
“The Lifted Brow is a literary magazine which was created to be literary, and at times, the industry doesn't quite understand what it means.”
“It tackles issues in a slower majestic way but that doesn't mean it can’t be funny or sad either. We publish on things which are more political and provocative where it looks at issues on identity and stuff - that is our speciality.” he adds.
Publishing The Lifted Brow in Melbourne has proven to be beneficial for the magazine. Since becoming an official City of Literature, Melbourne has become generally well-known as supportive of writing and publishing. In addition, the Victorian government is also more friendly to the arts scene compared to other states - it provides more funding for writers and publishers. In the last couple of years, the Australian Council and Creative Victoria has helped The Lifted Brow to cover some expenses, especially printing costs.
Coupled with funding from councils, The Lifted Brow’s long-standing publication comes from support from their readership. Sam shares The Lifted Brow’s secret to success.
“Literary magazines are never going to be profitable, but it can be sustained. There are services, reading products and the real value is that they serve as new mainstream platforms.”
“We do a lot of promotion and events where we get the chance to interact, hanging out with our community and reaching out to them. We are also very transparent with our works and that allowed to us to sustain for a long time,” said Sam.
So, what’s the secret to achieving a loyal readership for so many years? The answer is simple as Sam says, it comes in when “you prove that you are making a difference.”
“The magazine survived and thrived for 5 years through fundraising and events and back then, we didn't have government support. So for the first 5 years, there was no subsidy at all. For the first issue of the magazine there was a cupcake event provided and back then, The Lifted Brow was more of a zine than a magazine.”
“If your readers aren't the most important things to you, you’re steering off to the wrong direction. You stop being energetic and stop being active. For us, we always want to have lots of colour and lots of energy,” emphasises Sam.
To learn more about The Lifted Brow and to read their great stories, you can view their website here: https://www.theliftedbrow.com/
PAVING THE WAY FOR THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLISHING
Review of Australian Fiction, Phil Crowley
Established in 2012 by two friends, Matthew Lamb and Phil Crowley, the Review of Australian Fiction (RAF) has a reputation as a pioneering digital literary journal in Australia that paved the way to future literary magazines following in its footsteps.
Matt and Phil’s purpose in creating RAF was to combine the best of Australian fiction nationwide. They did not limit the works to any particular publishers, reviewers, bookstores, authors or even readers of the Australian fiction. They wanted to provide a platform for a diverse range of writers to showcase their works, and they did so by creating RAF.
RAF created a unique model where they published works of one established author and one emerging author fortnightly. They would commission the established work done by the author and ask them to pick an emerging writer they would like to be paired with. It was an ingenious way of allowing RAF to discover and launch new Australian writing while building new audiences for established authors.
With a view to the future of literary magazines, RAF also became one of the first to be a digital-only publisher where one can view the stories in .epub and .mobi formats on any device, anywhere in the world. RAF attracted international interest in the form of Overdrive, an American digital distributor. Phil, who was the manager of RAF back then, recounts fondly how all that happened.
“To the extent we did have some library interest it was all from Overdrive. There is a bit of a story there, too. We initially launched RAF on a platform call Booki.sh. that was the (brilliant) brain baby of Virginia Murdoch and her business partner Joseph.”
“Anyhow, they ended up selling Booki.sh to Overdrive and that gave us a rails run to get on Overdrive. We signed up. And then not much happened really. We got some sales, but not a lot,” he adds.
Another groundbreaking vision of RAF was to allow authors to maximise income from their works by ensuring authors retained as many rights as possible. For example, author (and YEP member) Meg Vann had her debut publication in RAF, and was then able to re-sell that story to a new publisher for republication, and for adaptation as a graphic novel.
Since launching, RAF has spanned over 288 stories in 144 issues. After working tirelessly throughout the past six years, Matt and Phil decided that it was time to take a break from the publishing scene. In a very light-hearted yet affirmative manner, Phil remarks candidly on RAF’s wind down.
“Being tired and knowing in our bones that continuing was futile. There's a lot of back-slapping when you run something like RAF, but no-one wants to pay for it. Or at least, not many. We had a readership and they were lovely, but we needed about ten times more. That wouldn't have made it a financially attractive business, but it would have let me and Matt pay some folks to help us do some of the work.”
“Six years is a long time to go live every fortnight when you know the next issue will end up costing you money just like the last one. Not a lot of money, and sometimes we made some, but we pretty much went backwards most quarters. We just decided to pay our accounts, sort out our subscribers (many of them waived the refunds - because they were mostly lovely) and step back. It was an admin-heavy task but it wasn't particularly hard. We had a few bob in the till so we could square off our accounts. Honestly, we did no more than pay outstanding amounts to writers and subscribers, and then we wished everyone well and moved on.”
Despite the challenges, Matt and Phil scored many successes with RAF, from launching new authors and publishing big names, to breaking new ground in how Australian literary journals structure rights, subscriptions, and formats to reach readers around Australia and the world.
To learn more about Review of Australian Fiction and to read their great stories, you can view their website here: https://reviewofaustralianfiction.com/
A VOICE FOR ASIAN AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS
Pencilled In, Yen-Rong Wong
It is uncommon to meet someone holding a degree majoring both in sciences and arts. More so, to also have their work published on renowned websites such as Catalogue Magazine, The Regal Fox and even The Guardian as well.
23-year-old Yen-Rong Wong has managed to accomplish all of that within a span of few years. A Malaysian-Chinese Australian, Yen-Rong is also known for being the founder and the editor of Pencilled In, a literary magazine dedicated to showcasing the works of young Asian Australian writers. So, how did the idea come about?
It all started from a research project during her final year of her undergraduate degree.
“I was in my last semester of my undergraduate degree and wanted to do a research project on a novel by an Asian Australian author and found that they basically didn’t exist in mainstream bookshops.” said Yen-Rong.
“In my head it made sense that there would be more than even the ones I could find by researching on the internet - I also knew a lot of Asian Australian writers, and it was puzzling to me that they’d be that hard to find.”
“It’s something I ran over in my head for a bit while I did Honours the next year. I resolved to try and do something to fix it after I finished - and so I did!” she adds.
And thus, the journey for Pencilled In begun. Yen-Rong admitted she had no clue how to begin, but with hard work and experimentation, Pencilled In blossomed into a literary magazine.
“In all seriousness though - it’s hard. Running a print magazine is also expensive. Printing costs are ridiculous for a small publisher and I was self-funding it for the first year.” she said
I was lucky enough to get a grant for the second year, but I’ll probably be back to self-funding after this. It’s also a lot of administrative work, which can be boring - but it’s a lot of emails and fielding requests and sorting through submissions and the like.”
“InDesign and photoshop (but especially InDesign) will be your friend, particularly if you want something in print. I’d also suggest thorough research to make sure what you’re doing isn’t already been covered or isn’t already readily available.” she suggests.
In collaboration with Rachel Ang, the art director for Pencilled In, they produced the first few issues of the magazine. For a new literary magazine, it has started to make waves in the industry.
Currently, the magazine has published four issues: “Fear & Hope”, “The Suburbs”, “Food” and most recently, a special collaboration with Liminal Magazine.
Each edition showcases the works of young and emerging Asian Australian talents, including poetry, non-fiction, fiction and art works.
Although Pencilled In serves as a platform to help these Asian Australian artists, Yen-Rong feels that there are still many challenges and stereotypes to overcome as an Asian Australian writer.
“I can’t really speak for Asian Australian artists involved in all art forms, so I’ll just provide my thoughts on what it’s like to be a writer.
“I think we’re in a place where Asian Australian writers are starting to be recognized more, which is great. But I think there are still underlying issues where people might think our/my English “isn’t as good”, whatever that means.” she said
Or we’re not seen as “Australian” writers - we’re still othered by the Asian Australian label, whether we like it or not.”
“I don’t mind calling myself Asian Australian but that’s my choice - but I also don’t mention my specific ethnicities in my bios because I don’t think that’s necessarily super important for people to know. If they want to know more about “where I’m from” or what I’m about then they can just read my work.”
However, she feels more could be done for Asian Australian artists in the Australian publishing landscape.
“I think the mainstream Australian publishing industry is still very resistant to change. There are very few Asian Australian editors, let alone publishers around in the Australian scene, which can make it difficult, especially as the number of writers begins to rise.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving my manuscript off to an all-white publishing team but at the same time, I know that’s the status quo.”
Despite the challenges of running her own literary magazine, Yen-Rong stands firmly on Pencilled In’s main purpose – to inspire young and emerging Asian Australian writers, especially those based in Brisbane. This talented and ambitious writer and publisher hopes to be able to run bigger events in the future as well.
To learn more about Pencilled In and to read their great stories, you can view their website here: http://pencilled.in/