Catsburrow, a Literary Magazine

(No, clicking on them won't do anything. Sorry.)

Find here the 19 volumes of literary magazine, containing short stories, long stories, poems, book reviews, and creative nonfiction.

I was ambitious starting off as a writer, I suppose. I had a pen name and the eagerness to write—write a lot. And there was no one to share this great literary magazine idea, so I decided to just give the challenge a stab by myself. Hence I was suddenly employed x 5+: writer, illustrator, editor, salesperson, web media manager, and whatever else it took to get there.

It was a long stab; the project remained speared for three years. The end of every other month, the print shop guy came in with ink-smelling boxes that contained the physical produce of my all-nighter labors. The zines were still a bit damp and left cover-colored marks on my eager fingers. And they were real. Nothing against digital publication, don't get me wrong, but as a budding writer I doubt few things would have held the same overwhelming… meaning, as seeing how my typed-up and printed stories and poems were, well, in print, and tangible, and permanent, and everything like all those books I read growing up thinking my life goal was to become a Newbery winning author.

Just as real and fixed, I found, were all the print mistakes, and weird positionings of typefaces, and the typos... Flowers of publication was what my aunt called them; I grew less forgiving of their bloomability with time. It was a learning experience. Everything from the most practical—project management, deadlines, and bimonthly postmarking over a hundred of the copies—to the most creative, with poems and stories and illustrations, still somehow had to fit in the calendar. Else, well, I ended up paying with a few too many all-nighters and 150 home-printed correction stickers.

Yet I emerged from the experience (reluctantly wrapped up with my college acceptance; adding full-time student to the tower of hats did not seem like the best of ideas) having more than survived, with the full set of writing and design and project-mapping skills that enabled me to do so much more as I continued my writing and artistic—and frankly, any—journey beyond. And sometimes, struck with some print-layout or writing task, I fantasize about doing it again.

Maybe. Maybe someday.

With the one producer wearing all the hats (me) being a sticker for hand-held literature, Catsburrow was always meant to be read in print. But what little remains of the copies is up in the attic at (one of my scattered remains of) home(s), so if you are curious, find a digital copy of the last issue below to scroll through at your leisure.

Looking for the whole series? Shoot me a message and we can work something out!