Reinvigorating the erotic
Normally, when I speak to the people who edit or publish the magazines we deliver to our subscribers, I’m speaking to people who have been there right from the start. They were the ones who came up with the idea for the magazine; they sat up late arguing over what to call it; and they guided it through the tricky steps towards print. But the Erotic Review is not like most of the magazines we send out on Stack, and when she joined our Magazine Club evening, editor and publisher Lucy Roeber explained some of the ways in which it’s different.
For starters, the magazine was launched in the late 90s, and it passed through several different editors and iterations, until it ended up online-only. The publisher was planning to close it down altogether but Lucy decided she couldn’t let that happen, and determined to bring it back as a big, beautiful, print magazine. She is a writer so she’s comfortable writing and editing, but all other parts of the magazine-making process were new to her, and in the video below she explains how a series of chance encounters led to the new Erotic Review looking and feeling the way it does.
She also spoke about some of the hazards that can come with taking on an existing magazine, particularly one with a name that can raise eyebrows in more straight-laced company. But more than anything, she showed her abundant passion for this brilliant literary magazine, demonstrating how she has taken it to this point, and laying out her plans for the future. It was wonderful speaking with her, and I hope you’ll enjoy catching up with the video.
And if you’re not already a Stack subscriber, I hope you’ll consider joining our independent magazine club. We deliver a different publication to our subscibers every month, and then invite the editors, publishers, designers and other contributors to join us on a Zoom call and talk about what they do. It’s a brilliant way of getting even closer to these independent publications, and we’d love to send them your way.
