On the back of a toilet door in a pub in New Cross, the advertising blurb of a listings poster promises that during an evening of short story readings all the readers will be, ‘Young, Fresh & Relevant‘. Young, Fresh & Relevant is a new bi-annual journal of art writing that has no interest in any of the previous adjectives.
While text has been used in art for hundreds of years, art writing is a term that has grown exponentially in the past few, spawning journals such as The Happy Hypocrite, 2HB, and an MFA course at Goldsmiths University dedicated to its study as an art form. Art writing is not something that is easy to define and this difficulty becomes its strength as a practice. Consider artists such as Sarah Tripp whose writings are part essay, interview, observation and short story; the work of Will Holder who treats the publication F.R David as a part of his artist practice; and Stewart Home who effortlessly mixes performance, music, film, installation and fiction and non fiction writings.
Young, Fresh & Relevant is now accepting submissions for its first issue from people from all educational backgrounds, from 2 to 2,000 words. The bias will be towards texts that explore the boundary between conventional story telling and art writing, and work that might not otherwise be shown in a gallery setting.
Hand printed and bound in a edition of 100 copies, the journal promises to take as much care and attention to its production as to the selection and quality of the writing inside, meaning that each copy stands alone as an artistic work.
Images can accompany texts, but please consider that it is most likely that they will be printed in black and white.
The number of texts that will be successful depends on the length of the chosen stories. You can expect to be contacted via email within a month after the deadline, whether you have been selected or not.
For further questions or submissions email info@youngfreshrelevant.com. However, we suggest before submitting that you read the conversation between Chloe Stead and Rebecca Jagoe, available on the website, as this may clear a few things up or confuse them further – but that‘s fine too).
Deadline for submissions: Monday 24th May 2010