The new queer literary magazine BitterSweet Review borrows its namesake from Anne Carson's book Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay (Princeton University Press, 1986), which delves into the Greek god Eros as a harbinger of pleasure and pain. Yet it is “also a nod to all things ambiguous that can't easily be categorized as one thing or another,” explained BitterSweet founding editor Benoît Loiseau.
Distributed in Europe via Antenne Books in print and online, BitterSweet is the brainchild of a collective of international queer artists, scholars, and writers based in London. Described as a “non-profit publishing platform” by its founders, the goal of the publication is to pay homage to queer culture while creating a space where conversations and perspectives from queer voices can coexist, explained Loiseau.
Earlier this year, BitterSweet’s founders raised over £7,500 for the production of the project through a Kickstarter campaign. The publication will be printed biannually, and its first issue, titled “Let’s Get Physical” (available now), focuses on the physical and metaphysical interpretations of the queer bodyform. The first issue carefully assembles nearly 20 contributions from writers and artists around the world—all representative of the queer experience, explained Loiseau.
From the name, logo and cover design, the magazine is full of references.
We like how it contrasts with "Review," which connotes a much more traditional literary publication. We hope our readers connect with that contrasting approach, combining a deep interest in literature with a desire to move away from the establishment. Our graphic designer, John Philip Sage, had fun playing around with the word bittersweet, too. The magazine’s logo is a one-eyed monstrous figure which references the perennial vine celastrus scandens—commonly known as "bittersweet"—popular in witchcraft for its protective quality against the evil eye.
For everyone involved in the project, what would you say inspired you to start the publication? Was there anything missing in the literary landscape that you hoped the magazine would fulfill?
My cofounding editor Kole Fulmine and I started running writing workshops with friends during lockdown in 2020 and 2021, as a way to build community, share our work and read others'. We were amazed by the quality and diversity of writing we workshopped and felt that there weren't any obvious places for that kind of queer, experimental, boundary-pushing writing to live. The publishing industry remains largely elitist and homogeneous: opportunities for queer writers are sparse, particularly if they don't fit into one box. We wanted to create a platform where queer voices and ideas aren't just tokenized but supported and given a thoughtful context.
The first issue makes a big statement. How did you choose the authors and stories that would be included?
For our inaugural issue, we wanted to think about physicality and what it means to exist as physical beings today. We sought to bring fresh and queer perspectives to the old cartesian dualism between mind and body, and I like to think that we've succeeded! The American author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore wrote a beautiful piece about the significance of touching art and letting art touch you; it is an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Touching the Art, which will be out with Soft Skull Press in 2023. We also have a timely essay by British journalist Vicky Spratt, which discusses reproductive rights and brings forth innovative ideas concerning contemporary parenthood, particularly for queer folks. Fiction-wise, we published a piece by emerging American writer Roberto Rodriguez-Estrada, which draws inspiration from Latin American folktales and indigenous notions of the third gender. Altogether, we feel these varied and nuanced voices contribute to the literary landscape in exciting ways. We hope our readers feel the same! We had a great time launching the issue at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London last month and were pleased with the feedback we got.
The magazine industry has been on a historic decline for several years. In ways do you think BitterSweet can beat the pitfalls magazines face today? Is it all nonprofit supported?
Yea, that's a tough one! But we're pretty stubborn. Queer publishing, historically, rests on a long tradition of DYI methods and practices, and that's the spirit we've embraced. As an organization, we're pretty much modeled like a nonprofit. We're a small team of three editors and one designer. We all have day jobs, mostly in academia, journalism and sports, too. One strand of our activity is to produce artists' limited editions, which contributes to our revenues. Our first one is by American artist Gray Wielebinski. It's the artwork for the magazine cover, which we've produced as a limited print edition.
