Anonthology – the mystery literary magazine

Following on from yesterday morning’s post in praise of Little White Lies’ mini mag I wanted to give a nod to Anonthology, another clever piece of self-promotion that’s actually worth reading.

It’s made by Fourth Estate, an imprint of British publisher Harper Collins, and is a very simple 32-page magazine containing nine short stories. It’s held together by a couple of staples and the design is nice but nothing out of the ordinary.

The clever bit is that the contributing authors are listed on the front cover but their names are blocked out on the stories themselves, leaving readers to match up authors with stories. As the magazine’s introduction explains, the anthology is “an experimental project to assess the importance placed on name and reputation over quality of writing” and it’s also a fun bit of guesswork as readers try to work out who wrote what.

There’s even a competition running until the end of this month that invites readers to send in their guesses to win a haul of Fourth Estate books.

As with yesterday’s mini mags, all Stack subscribers will receive a copy of Anonthology with their October delivery (which should be arriving any time now). I’ve got a few spare copies of Anonthology though, so if you want one drop me a line and let me know. I can only send out to the UK for free, but if you’re overseas and you want one get in touch and I’ll let you know how much it will cost for me to send over to you.