Makarelle - Beginnings

If you'd said to me six months ago that I would be an editor of an online magazine by now, I would have laughed in your face. I mean, come on, there is a global pandemic for goodness sake!!!

 

 

But here I am, one of the editors of Makarelle, an online literary and creative arts magazine that champions the yet to be published, but quite brilliant creative individual.   

Initially, there were five of us involved. We lost a couple of people at the beginning, when the amount of work this would entail became a reality and now, we are three. Myself, Dini and Ruth.

 

Three women at opposite ends of the country - Dini in the North, me in the middle and Ruth in the South.

We met whilst we were completing our masters in creative writing with the Open University. None of us have ever met in person and have managed to complete this thing via online video conferencing emails, WhatsApp, and general bloody mindedness.

It all started in January when in our small writers meeting, we were complaining that we couldn't get anyone to take any interest in our work. Dini said, 'shall we start our own magazine?' and laughingly we all agreed, thinking at least I might get some of my own stuff published! (There is actually very little of our own stuff in the magazine, as there was so many other good things that needed to go in.)

 

By February we had decided on the name and a call out on social media for submissions. Our friends and followers, liked and shared and submissions started to pour into our inbox. We were very pleasantly surprised by the amount and quality of the work we received.

 

In March we made the difficult decisions of who's submission we accepted or declined and who would get to be a featured post. 

 

We were determined not to become pigeonholed by genre, style or type of creative work, but instead set a theme, as we will for every quarterly edition of the magazine. Our first theme is Coming Unravelled.  

 

 

As March came to an end we brushed off our MS Publisher skills and put the magazine together. 

 

We are all quietly impressed, with both our contributors and what we have achieved. It looks amazing! 

 

Makarelle's first edition is out on 16th April 2021. We hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we have making it. 

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