Gutter

About Gutter

Gutter is Scotland's leading literary magazine — a biannual periodical published in Glasgow, dedicated to publishing new fiction, essays and poetry from Scotland and beyond. Founded in 2009 by Adrian Searle and Colin Begg, it is independently published and cooperatively owned and run by its workers. Publishing prose, poetry and reviews across 192 pages, in English, Scots and Gaelic, it showcases emerging and established writing talent side by side. Its website is guttermag.co.uk.

Notable Gutter contributors have included Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, Liz Lochhead, Louise Welsh, Ron Butlin, James Kelman and Alexander Hutcheson — as well as the new writers the magazine exists to champion. It is supported by Creative Scotland.

Founded in 2009: Life in the Gutter

Gutter was established by editors Adrian Searle and Colin Begg — graduates of the University of Glasgow's Masters in Creative Writing course — propelled by two frustrations: a literary journalist overheard at the Wigtown Book Festival bemoaning that there were "no good writers under the age of forty-five in Scotland," and the lack of literary magazines exhibiting new Scottish writing after the demise of titles such as Cutting Teeth and Cencrastus.

The first issue was launched in August 2008 (the magazine's formal founding dated to 2009). Gutter was established to fill the void: to promote new and exciting Scottish writing, showcasing emerging and established talent side by side, published twice yearly.

The Magazine of New Scottish Writing

Gutter is "a magazine of new Scottish writing": an award-winning, high-quality printed journal for fiction and poetry from writers born or living in Scotland. The editors believe in "an energetic, ambitious magazine dedicated to the best in new Scottish writing, published in an international context."

The work is "in turns diverse, delicate and dangerous" — with contributions from every corner of Scotland, all the major countries of Europe, Canada, both coasts of the USA, the Antipodes and the Far East: "most of all, global in attitude."

Cooperatively Owned and Run

The magazine is cooperatively owned and run by its workers — a commitment to inclusivity and community engagement built into its structure. Managing editor Henry Bell and lead editors Colin Begg and Kate MacLeary are joined by editors Laura Waddell, Calum Rodger, Robbie Guillory, Katy Hastie and Ryan Vance.

That cooperative model reflects the magazine's ethos: a collective enterprise for Scottish writing, owned by the people who make it.

A Proving Ground for New Writers

Since its inception Gutter has been first to publish work from acclaimed emerging novelists and poets including Pippa Goldschmidt, Deborah Andrews, Kirsty Logan, Helen Sedgwick and Mary Paulson-Ellis — "a proving ground where emerging writers can first find an audience, rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in Scottish literature."

Early issues featured Alan Bissett, Louise Welsh, Zoe Strachan, Ewan Morrison, Kevin Williamson and many others — the new generation of Scottish writing finding its first home in Gutter's pages.

Gutter Events and Anthologies

The magazine's life extends beyond the page: Gutter events have included "McSex" at the Edinburgh International Book Festival — exploring the tradition of eroticism in Scottish literature — and events at the National Library of Scotland and Glasgow's Aye Write! Book Festival. Plans have included a Gutter anthology, gathering the best of the magazine's new writing.

Gutter Today

From its 2009 founding to today's biannual, Gutter has been Scotland's leading literary magazine for over fifteen years — the energetic, ambitious, cooperatively owned journal that proved there were plenty of good writers under forty-five in Scotland after all.

Biannual in print, in English, Scots and Gaelic, it remains the essential venue for new Scottish writing — at guttermag.co.uk.

Diverse, Delicate and Dangerous

Gutter has described the work it publishes as 'in turns diverse, delicate and dangerous' — and its pages have borne the description out. With contributions from every corner of Scotland, all the major countries of Europe, Canada, both coasts of the USA, the Antipodes and the Far East, the magazine is, in its own phrase, 'most of all, global in attitude' — a Scottish magazine with the world in its sights.

The early issues show the range. Issue 07, Autumn 2012, featured Ronald Frame, Olufemi Terry and Toni Davidson among many others. Issue 03 mixed published and emerging writers: Louise Welsh, Elizabeth Reeder, Kirsten McKenzie, Zoe Strachan, Hazel Frew, Dorothy Alexander, Elaine Di Rollo, Bridget Khursheed, Ewan Morrison, Kevin Williamson, Ronald Frame and Carl MacDougall — the established and the new, side by side, as the magazine has always intended.

It is a beautiful publication as well as a substantial one: Gutter won the Chairman's Award for Design in the Scottish Design Awards 2010, and its issues — published by Freight Books in the early years — have the production values of the best independent literary publishing.

The Business of the Cooperative

Gutter is cooperatively owned and run by its workers — a structure that reflects its commitment to inclusivity and community engagement, and that makes it unusual among British literary magazines. It is published biannually, in February and August, from Glasgow.

The cooperative model extends to how the magazine treats its contributors. The magazine pays for published work — £50 a piece, according to industry listings — charges no submission fee, and accepts around 8 per cent of submissions: a professional, writer-friendly operation that takes its responsibilities to new writing seriously.

That professionalism has made it, in the words of one directory, 'Scotland's leading literary magazine, dedicated to publishing new fiction, essays, and poetry' — showcasing emerging and established writers from Scotland and beyond, and aiming, as it puts it, 'to challenge, move, and enliven its readers.'

Adrian Searle's Anthologies

Co-editor Adrian Searle has carried the Gutter ethos beyond the magazine's pages. He has edited a number of anthologies of new writing, including The Hope That Kills Us: An Anthology of Scottish Football Fiction and The Knuckle End: A Meaty Collection of New Scottish Writing — books that share the magazine's appetite for the energetic, the ambitious and the demotic.

With the artist Judith Hastie he co-authored 101 Uses of a Dead Kindle and If Dogs Could Swear — collaborations that speak to the magazine's comfort with the visual as well as the verbal, the playful as well as the serious. Searle, with Colin Begg, founded Gutter in 2009 on the belief that there was a need for an energetic, ambitious magazine dedicated exclusively to the best in new Scottish creative writing.

The anthologies, like the magazine, are published to a high standard — and like the magazine, they insist that Scottish writing is not a regional curiosity but a literature of international consequence: diverse, delicate, dangerous, and global in attitude.

The Samizdat Mini-Feature

Issue 04 of Gutter carried a mini-feature with few parallels in British literary magazines: an account of the Samizdat banned East German literary magazines of the 1970s and 1980s — the underground publications through which dissident writers circulated their work under a regime that forbade it. For a young Scottish magazine to devote space to the clandestine literary culture of the old Eastern Bloc was a statement of seriousness: Gutter took the idea of independent publishing personally.

The issue around it showed the magazine's usual range: Zoe Wicomb, Jason Donald, Nick Brooks, Allan Cameron, Jim Carruth, Brian Johnstone, Rodge Glass, Doug Johnstone, Lesley McDowell, Gordon Meade, Douglas S. Murray, Cynthia Rogerson, Dilys Rose, Christie Williamson and Graeme Williamson — published and emerging writers alike, in the 232-page paperback format that Freight Books gave the early issues.

The Samizdat feature captured something essential about Gutter: a cooperative, independent magazine, paying its contributors, publishing the best new Scottish writing — and keeping one eye on the wider world of literary resistance, from East Berlin to Edinburgh.