Stack Magazines

Lucy Roeber is editor and publisher of the Erotic Review, a magazine that became particularly well known as a bimonthly title in the late 90s and early 2000s. It had since switched to publishing online and it was going to close altogether, and in this episode she tells how she set out to bring it back as a fully-fledged print magazine. In her hands it has become a lovely, thick literary magazine, aimed at an international readership and dedicated to reaching, “outside the embarrassed parameter” to explore the rich subject of desire.

Conor Foran is editor of Dysfluent, a magazine based on his experience of stammering, which aims to become a publication of stammering pride. Using a custom typeface with letters that get stretched out, or chopped up and repeated, Dysfluent aims to reflect the sound of a stammer, representing individuals' voices as closely as possible.

For the entire time I've worked in magazines, I've been told that print is dead. But what does that actually mean? And why has the idea endured for so long? I took a deep dive into the death of print to see if I could figure out what's going on, and what that means for the future of magazines and digital media.

Olivia Crandall and Elena Foraker are editors of Not Here to Make Friends, a lovely, thoughtful, almost scholarly journal about reality TV. In this episode, they speak about wanting to engage completely with their subject matter, embracing both the good and the bad, and using this much maligned television genre as a way of understanding what’s going on in society more broadly.

Erin Rimmer and Simon Doherty are two of the founders of Roughcast, a brilliantly abrasive, punk-inspired magazine that’s here to shake up what it calls the “dull pastiche” of British media. It’s a passion project run by a group of friends, but it also has some big ideas about the way media works, particularly relating to freelancers, and the urgent need to find a way of publishing that doesn't depend on the routine exploitation of junior writers, photographers and artists.

Natassa Pappa is editor-in-chief and creative director of Desired Landscapes, the pocket-sized magazine that brings a fresh and philosophical perspective to travel writing. Natassa is based in Athens, but she was over in London recently for a talk at the Magculture shop, so we met up the following day and went for a walk on Hampstead Heath to talk about her radically subjective approach to travel.

Lina Fadel is one of the poetry editors at The Other Side of Hope, a magazine that centres around journeys in refugee and immigrant literature. It’s partly a literary magazine and partly a community project, because as she explains in this episode, it’s all about bringing people together and providing a platform for voices that wouldn’t otherwise be heard.

"I was just hanging out with my algorithm and it got a little claustrophobic..." Daniela Rodriguez is editor-in-chief, designer and illustrator of Superstars Only, a brilliantly personal magazine that she makes with her boyfriend Adrian Tiu and a few close friends in New York. As you’ll hear, Daniela is incredibly self-effacing and the magazine itself has a lovely lowbrow charm, but it’s also really quite experimental and exciting, and I was interested to hear her describing the process she goes through in making an issue, and the special magic that she feels print brings to the project.

Recorded live at the Shifting Landscapes event in London on Saturday 2nd December, this conversation features Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, executive editor of Emergence, and Bram Broerse and Maurits Wouters, founders of Studio Airport and designers of Emergence. Emmanuel has been on the Stack podcast before speaking about making Emergence magazine at the meeting point of climate, environment, spirituality and humanity, and in this discussion we broaden the focus to encompass Emergence's podcasts, films, immersive exhibitions and more.

Grub Street Journal, a magazine about magazines, explores the resilience of print in the B2B publishing industry. The podcast discusses humanizing the magazine industry, the success of 'The Week' magazine, and the challenges of running a print publication. It also hints at upcoming episodes with industry professionals.