Magculture Live is coming up fast (Thursday 7th November, at the Vitsoe shop here in London) so I took the opportunity to sit down with Magculture founder Jeremy Leslie and have a long chat about magazine stuff. We spoke about some of the high-profile magazines, like Vice and The Onion, which have recently returned to print. We spoke about changes …

Nicolas Kemper is publisher of New York Review of Architecture, the big, two-colour, newsprint magazine that has become renowned for its long, critical, entertaining essays about architecture and the city. He gave the first talk of the weekend at this year’s Indiecon and I loved his enthusiasm for all parts of publishing – not just the fun stuff li…

Viêt and Jeremy Raider-Hoàng are the founders, editors and creative directors of No One, a new magazine that explores the queer nightlife of a different city each issue. It feels natural to marry the subjects of nightlife and queer culture, and you can tell there are big, serious ideas behind their impulse to document the hedonistic fun they see ar…

For this 40th anniversary episode of the Podcast, Jeremy is joined by Danielle Pender, founder of Riposte, and Kai von Rabenau, founder of mono.kultur. They discuss the return to print of the two magazines after a three-year gap, and the changes and learnings the two publisher/editors have noted over the long runs of their magazines.Danielle publis…

For this first episode of the new season I’ve got a conversation with Kat, the woman who makes Moan, a magazine of sensuality and eroticism that prioritises the female gaze. It has a lot of explicit imagery, but it’s definitely not pornographic, and in fact there’s something about the risograph print and production that makes it feel like more of a…

Ellie Jackson is the editor-in-chief and creative director of The Movement Movement, the women’s sports magazine that is committed to broadening our understanding of what sports coverage should look like. Issue one came out a few weeks ago, but that was preceded by issue zero, which came out in 2022, and in this episode she speaks about the delay b…

Steph Chung is managing partner at Racquet, the New York-based magazine that takes a fresh, anti-elitist look at the world of tennis. There have been some big changes since the last issue, with editor David Shaftel and art director Larry Buchanan both leaving the magazine, and a more commercial emphasis across the pages, with a big Gucci photo shoo…

Zuzana Kvetková is executive editor of Backstage Talks, the magazine that grew out of Bratislava’s By Design Conference. Their new issue will be landing in shops very soon, and as she explains in this podcast, it marks something of a watershed. Because after 10 years they’ve decided that it’s time to stop running the conference, which in turn promp…

Yuto Miyamoto is editor of Troublemakers, a new Tokyo-based interview magazine that fills its pages with ordinary people living variously extraordinary lives. It’s a very personal magazine – he makes it with his wife, Manami Inoue, who is the art director, and interviewees are photographed at home, with lots of space dedicated to exploring their th…

Tom Rowley runs the Backstory bookshop in Balham in South London. He was previously a journalist for The Telegraph and The Economist, which he describes as his dream job, but when the pandemic knocked everything sideways he decided it was time to reassess and follow his other dream of running a bookshop. As he puts it, though, he felt the pull of i…

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…

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.…

This episode looks at the role of illustration in publishing, with two guests whose magazines rely on drawn images to bring their pages to life. Cathy Olmedillas launched her ‘happy mag for kids’ Anorak 18 years ago, and has developed an international audience for its colourfully themed quarterly editions. The magazine is also one of a set that lau…

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 goin…

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 urgen…

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 …

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 b…

"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 its…

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 …

We don't have many business to business magazines on the Stack podcast, but I'm making an exception for the Grub Street Journal because it's a magazine about magazines, and while it's ostensibly a trade magazine for the print publishing industry, it takes great joy in playing around with the sort of editorial tone that other B2B publishers would ne…

This episode features two of the international guests that spoke at our recent magCulture Live London 2023 event. Both joined us a couple of days after the event to discuss their publications in more detail, revealing a shared passion for print.After a brief reflection on magCulture Live from Jeremy and Danielle, and a look at some recent new magaz…

Zweikommasieben is the Swiss magazine that's obsessed with the contemporary musical moment. We delivered their 27th issue to Stack subscribers in August this year, and then the following month we invited everyone to join us for a conversation that digs into the details behind the making of the magazine. It was great to catch up with them, and to he…

Recorded live on Tuesday 10th October at The Scrandit in Bristol, this podcast episode features four independent publishers speaking about the challenges and opportunities of combining left-wing politics and print. The conversation was moderated by Eliz Mizon, strategy lead for The Bristol Cable, and it featured Max Jeffrey, art director of Stir to…

I dropped into the Magculture shop in Clerkenwell to speak with founder Jeremy Leslie ahead of next month's Magculture Live event. This will be their 10th year of the London-based conference (they also run it in New York) and it was really interesting to hear his thoughts on the last decade of running the event, as well as the general state of maga…

We learn about two very different magazines this episode, the common thread being events and tenth anniversaries.After Jeremy and Danielle give an update on the 10th anniversary edition of magCulture Live, London, and discuss a few current magazines favourites from our shelves (including Disco Pogo, WePresent and Litt), Jeremy talks to Penny Martin…

Osman Bari is founder, editor and designer of Chutney, a magazine that provides a platform for underrepresented voices to tell stories about cultural identity, colonialism and migration. We met up to speak about his ideas behind the magazine, the influence of food on the title, and his own changing status of settler and immigrant, and how being in …

Recorded in August 2023 for our Stack Magazine Club, this conversation with editors Aliza Abarbanel and Tanya Bush explores Cake Zine, the magazine we delivered to our subscribers in July 2023. Telling the story of the literary food magazine so far, they explain how they started in the pandemic with their Sexy Cake issue, then released Wicked Cake …

The first issue of Te was published in 2021 and it caught my eye because it seemed to be doing something clever with food publishing: Its stories are about the different ways that ingredients can travel around the world, or the different values and associations that might be attributed to particular dishes, and so the whole thing seemed to be using…

Recorded at Indiecon in Hamburg, editors Vasudhaa Narayanan and Tarini Sethi speak about The Irregular Times, their playful and provocative newspaper dedicated to platforming the creative work and everyday activities of people of colour across India and beyond.De către Stack Magazines

Recorded live at Indiecon 2023, hear from the team at Solomiya, the extraordinary magazine made by young people in Ukraine who are documenting and coming to terms with what it means to be at war. I’m a huge fan of what the team are doing with this magazine – I note in my introduction that I’ve never seen a magazine like this being made by people wh…

This episode features major players from two different areas of magazine publishing. First, Rob Orchard, co-founder of Delayed Gratification, discusses reaching the landmark 50th issue of the original slow journalism indie. Then Gail Bichler, creative director of The New York Times Magazine and one of the most successful and influential editorial d…

Ernst van der Hoeven and Kirsten Algera, the creative team behind MacGuffin talk to Jeremy Leslie as their 12th issue, The Log, arrives in shops; Alison Branch, managing director of Park Communications, discusses a new book designed to help clients print sustainably, and we hear an excerpt from a recent shop event featuring Jonathan Simons of Analo…

Jeremy Leslie meets editorial creative director Andrew Diprose at the magCulture Shop, and also trades magazine retail experience with Nicola Hamilton, who opened the magazine shop Issues in Toronto six months ago.A passionate advocate for magazines and print, Andrew Diprose was creative director at the UK edition of Wired for fourteen years, leavi…

Recorded live at Issues in San Francisco on Saturday 5th November, hear Anja Charbonneau (Broccoli), Victor Gonzalez (Gross) and Michael Ray (Zoetrope) discussing their work publishing independent magazines on the West Coast of the USA.De către Stack Magazines

This episode features two magazines, the long established Buffalo Zine and new launch Linseed Journal.Buffalo Zine co-founder David Uzquiza joins Jeremy Leslie at the magCulture Shop to discuss a few recent magazines (Real Review, Baroness, Epoch, Safelight Paper and Elephant) before the two are joined via Zoom from Paris by David’s Buffalo Zine pa…

We hear from two very different magazine makers this episode. As his book about launching nineties supermag Loaded is published, publishing entrepreneur James Brown joins Jeremy at the magCulture Shop to select his indie favourites, including Electronic Sound, The Square Ball and Whalebone. The two discuss how the Loaded phenomenon exploded, and Ja…

We welcome three very different voices for this episode: Liv Siddall (WePresent), Dave Calhoun (Time Out) and Natalia Rachlin (Mother Tongue).First, ex co-host Liv Siddall joins Jeremy at the magCulture Shop for a quick look at some new magazines from our shelves. Hear their thoughts on Boys! Boys! Boys!, Plethora, A Profound Waste of Time and OOF.…

Recorded at our Independent Magazine Fair on Saturday 14th May, this episode of the Stack podcast focuses on the independent magazine makers that are trying to change the world for the better. Evar Hussayni, senior editor of Azeema; Ellie Jackson, editor of The Movement Movement; and Nina Carter, co-creative director of It's Freezing in LA! all spe…

Recorded live at our Independent Magazine Fair on Saturday 14th May 2022, this panel discussion features advice from the unconventional magazine makers behind Real Review, A Profound Waste of Time and Paperboy.De către Stack Magazines

Recorded at our Independent Magazine Fair, this panel discussion features expert advice from the people behind Delayed Gratification, Season Zine, and The Modernist.De către Stack Magazines

A design special featuring two magazines with highly unique visual identities.During her first visit to London, Editorial Magazine founder Claire Milbraith joins Jeremy and Danielle at the magCulture Shop to discuss recent new issues including Emergence and Mushroom People, and the extraordinary design of her own magazine. Then Jeremy talks to Rich…

This special edition of the magCulture Podcast marks the 15th anniversary of Monocle. Jeremy Leslie talks to the magazine’s founder and editorial director Tyler Brûlé as issue 151 arrives from the printers. The two discuss the origins of the magazine, its growth over the years, Brûlé’s mistrust of social media, the importance of tone of voice, and …

The episode opens with Jeremy Leslie and magCulture shop manager/writer Danielle Mustarde discussing recent issues of Good Place La Nueva Carne and Electronic Sound magazines. We then meet two guests, one a magazine-maker, the other a keen magazine observer.The first is John Holt, the man behind the remarkable LAW magazine. Its 10th issue was our r…

Our final Podcast episode of 2021 features three magazines linked by name to celebratory foods. Its origins lie in a planned live event; with Covid rearing its head again we converted the idea into a podcast.First up, art director Holly Catford talks to Jeremy Leslie via Zoom from Bristol about the many deadlines she faces as the year ends, and in …

Martha Dillon is editor of It’s Freezing in LA!, the magazine about climate change that recently published its eighth issue, themed around ‘Borders’. I spoke to her a couple of weeks after COP26 came to an end and I was interested to hear her thoughts on the conference, as well as the wider climate change conversation and how greater interest in th…

Riposte magazine founder Danielle Pender joins Jeremy Leslie at the magCulture Shop, we hear an excerpt from our recent magCulture Meets The Modernist event, and take a quick look back at football mag Mundial.Danielle and Jeremy share a few finds from the magCulture shelves—Meantime, Now You Know, The Fence and The Plant—before sitting down to talk…

"We miss having a tactile experience..." Platon Poulas is one of the people behind Dead Slow, a strange new magazine concept that we have in the Stack shop at the moment. He and his co-founder Anunaya Rajhans describe themselves as producers rather than editors, and that reflects the unusual format of the magazine, which is presented as a vinyl rec…

"The world suddenly feels bigger again..." Nelson Ng is founder, editor and art director of Lost, a travel magazine based in Shanghai and published in both English and Mandarin. Of course the pandemic has made international travel much more problematic than it used to be, and that will inevitably have consequences for anyone making a travel magazin…

"We've always loved analogue. We produce records, we make books, we do physical shows – it's part of who we are..." Sean Bidder is editor of Fact, the music and visual art magazine that was relaunched last year as a big, glossy, biannual publication. I spoke to Sean and Zak Kyes, founder of Zak Group and art director of the relaunch, to find out wh…