Loose Change Magazine gets a redo
WonderRoot’s lit mag, Loose Change, has received a major redo. The blog-esque look of the original online magazine is gone and in its place is a highly effective, professional and completely reader-worthy manifestation of their mission to showcase literature. Below, Molly Dickinson, managing editor, talks about their hopes for the magazine, its role in the art movement in Atlanta, and how they want to continually jump to a bigger bowl.
Q. Loose Change has gone through a complete makeover and it looks amazing. Is there a new mission behind this relaunch?
A. Thank you! We’re thrilled with the results—and I have to give Steven Ricard, our webmaster, and Staci Janik, our graphic designer (both volunteers, just like rest of LC) major credit for that. As to our mission, it’s the same, only a bit refined and refocused. We’ve always aimed to provide a literary space in Atlanta that isn’t just for publication, but also for connection—a place where writers (and readers, and listeners) can not only share their work, but share the process of creating and developing their work. This redesign does a much better job of framing that space and inviting people in to explore.
Q. One of the things that WonderRoot and Loose Change focuses on is the relationship between the city’s community and the arts. How will Loose Change enforce and encourage this unity between the two?
A. “Enforce” makes me think of an army of us blanketing the city and driving bystanders into readings at pencil-point! But, I know what you mean. Encourage is much better. Invite is probably the best way to describe what we do—we invite Atlanta to engage with the places where community and the literary arts meet by providing new, exciting and often completely strange and unexpected opportunities for them to do so. We did a reading series on an old school (literally) rooftop in East Atlanta at dusk, where people actually had to climb up through a hole in the ceiling using a utility ladder. I’d love to bring that back. We also seek to promote and partner with other equally unique literary events and groups that have sprung up all over the city to form one connected, invested literary community. Vouched, Purge, Write Club, Lost in the Letters, Naked City, Solar Anus, Carapace—in their own ways, all of these organizations are proving that literature is not just a solitary academic pursuit to be shouldered alone at a writing desk, but a collaborative art that grows out of our communities and is meant to be given back to them.
Q. It is nice to see that the literary arts are now becoming a part of the visual art community. Do you think that Loose Change will play a big part in combining these previously separate worlds? And do you think it will start a trend throughout the city?
A. I think that Atlanta’s response to the trend has already grown it into a movement, and for that reason, I think it will continue to become an even more significant part of Atlanta’s cultural identity. I don’t want to give Loose Change more credit than is due as far as inspiring that response—I’ll leave that up to the respondees—but I will say that one of our goals has always been to show the lines between the written and visual arts as lines of connection, not of separation. For me, one particularly important aspect of that is to also show written art as visual art in purely physical terms: pen, pencil and keys as mediums, handwriting, graphic letter-making, typography, oral storytelling, staged readings. Our redesign was also intended to better showcase that, and to blend the digital space with the physical by adding elements like flippable pages for the online issue, printmaking-inspired fonts (our graphic designer is also a letter press artist) and—coming soon—audio and video performance clips. And, of course, being an extension of WonderRoot, we are surrounded by an incredibly active and collaborative visual arts community and are charged with the same purpose: to create positive social change through our work.
Q. For writers that are interested in submitting work for publication, what are the main points you look for?
A. The best way to answer this would be to point them to our website, since it gives a detailed rundown of submission guidelines and requirements. The quick answer is “Bold, finely crafted writing that moves us.” We accept submissions of all forms of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama—pretty much anything that can be printed on a page. Our next submission cutoff is May 15 (to be considered for the summer issue), but you can submit online any time atwww.loosechangemagazine.org/submit.
Q. What are your hopes for the future of Loose Change Magazine?
A. Right now we are pursuing some funding opportunities that will enable us to do many of the things we’ve talked about doing from the very first LC meeting. We have to handle development very differently as an all-volunteer organization, as it presents some pretty distinct challenges, but the community support and the WonderRoot base give us a lot to build on. As a literary magazine, our first and foremost interest is always enhancing the quality, individuality and reach of our publication. To that end, our biggest immediate goal is to produce a print issue. We have a time line and a strategy in mind, and I can promise you that when it arrives it will be absolutely stunning. We’ll also be continuing the work we started with the redesign in terms of advancing the website, particularly the Community pages, and developing more educational opportunities—workshops, guest speakers, pop-up writing events—for writers, readers and listeners. Soon, we’d like to be able to fund our published writers and further support their work in that way. Ultimately, my most basic hope for Loose Change is that, as a new breed of literary organization, it will grow to fit Atlanta’s evolving arts communities as they continue to feed and shape each other—like a goldfish slipped into a bigger and bigger bowl.
