A new print magazine has launched to share seaside stories, coastal poetry, and tidal tales, along with photography and artwork.
Seaside Gothic has been created by award-winning writer Seb Reilly, who also writes for The Isle of Thanet News.
2021 was a busy year for Seb, as he was awarded the coveted title of Kent Columnist of the Year for his column in The Isle of Thanet News. He had previously been a finalist in the same category at the Kent Press and Broadcast Awards, including in 2020 when the late Jane Wenham-Jones won the award for her column, also in The Isle of Thanet News. He also spent the year creating Seaside Gothic, which published Issue 1 on the first day of January 2022.
Seaside Gothic features writing from several Thanet-based writers, as well as others from further afield. It was created “to showcase the best writing of an obscure genre which overlaps many other categories of writing,” and was inspired by living along the coastline of Thanet.
“I was born a seasider,” Seb said. “Saltwater is in my blood. Writing not just about living beside the sea, but from the water’s edge, is something that I find myself compelled to do.”
Issues also feature a selection of images from a photographer or artist, with the first presenting photographs of shanty life from along the south Kent coast between Thanet and Dungeness, taken by photographer Amy Elizabeth.
Seb said: “The visuals of Seaside Gothic are as important as the words, as the magazine has to feel the same way it reads.”
The first issue of Seaside Gothic includes writing from Maggie Harris who won the Guyana Prize for Literature, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and the Kent University TS Eliot Poetry Prize. She was mentored by Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021.
Featuring alongside Maggie Harris in Issue 1 are Barry Fentiman Hall, the editor of Confluence Magazine, Lee Stoddart, three-time finalist for the HG Wells Short Story Competition, and Catherine Law, who has five novels published including ‘Map of Stars’ which was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists Association Historical Novel Award 2017.
Also included are two columnists from The Isle of Thanet News—Matthew Munson and Melissa Todd—as well as former director of Thanet Writers Lannah Marshall, publisher and editor Anthony Levings, satirist Luke Edley, and acclaimed poets Kirsty Louise Farley, SM Jenkin, and N Godsell.
Issue 1 of Seaside Gothic can be bought online and is also stocked in some retailers including the Margate Bookshop. A postal subscription to the quarterly print issues is also available, as is a digital subscription through Patreon.
For more information or to buy a copy visit seasidegothic.com
