Memoir of a Magazine #6: Utopia
Gary Raymond answers the questions from Wales Arts Review writers and readers.
Gary Raymond co-founded Wales Arts Review in 2012. It was born out of a conversation in a pub during half-time of a football match that was on the tele. Twelve years later, Wales Arts Review is read all around the world by hundreds of thousands of people. It has published the finest writers and artists of several generations that Wales has produced, and on a stunning range of topics. Over the next few weeks, this series will aim to explore and celebrate the life of the magazine.
If you missed the full introduction to this series, you can find it here.
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.” In the map that is a small-nation-unto-itself how might the nexus of funding bodies-funding allocations-writers-critics-journals & commentary be in a best-of-all worlds?
Firstly, the last thing we need is Utopia, as I don’t think we’d have anything to write about. But I think the landscape of Welsh magazine publishing can definitely be more energised and positive than it currently is. My first suggestion (and I first suggested this in print last year) is bring everyone together to discuss possibilities. The Books Council is perfectly situated to facilitate a weekend conference of writers, editors and publishers, to hammer out how the future could be so much brighter. It’s such a shame that the Books Council views itself as a “Computer says No” organisation that has no part to play in the evolution and nurturing of ideas. It allocates funding. But for anything else, it is, in this incarnation, a whistling dungeon where emails go to die.
I have suggested this conference several times. Don’t invite bureaucrats or administrators, but invite the people who have been knee deep in this stuff for years. The writers, the editors, the cultural entrepreneurs. My suggestion would be to start with the idea that two new cultural journals would be formed from the resources and skills and knowledge of the existing (and recently deceased) magazines. Increase the English language magazine budget to £300,000 a year, to bring it level with the Welsh language funding pot. (The arguments that give Welsh language magazines more money than the English language ones can be made afresh in the face of contemporary pressures and data - I don’t think they would hold up any longer. Level it up). Have two magazines in English in Wales with budgets of £150,000 each. It would make for some pretty smart magazines that would always punch above their weight on the international scene, and it would help professionalise literate critical thinking in Wales. The money is there, don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Last week, the Books Council announced it was allocating £500,000 to publishers and magazines to develop what it calls “new audiences”, to be dished out in grants of £20,000-30,000. This is on top of a current process of asking business plans to be submitted for a new English language magazine that will be funded to tune of £80,000pa. If they ask nicely, I could introduce the editors of that new magazine to Wales Arts Review’s “old audience” of 250,000 people around the world. Would they count as “new audience”? I’d set up a zoom call with the lot of them for one of those grants. Happy to.
But seriously, I think there is enough money, and enough brilliant minds, to create a truly inspiring and energetic magazine publishing scene in Wales. These pisspot grants to keep cottage industry amateurs ticking over should be a thing of the past. Do it right, think big, get the bureaucrats out of the picture, and watch the knock-on effects of it all sprout the things we cannot as yet prophecy. Wales Arts Review was a success because it was the brainchild of a group of writers desperate to create something special, not because we were answering the greyed callout of a municipal cashier.
The bright future you ask about is in the empowerment of writers who believe in the project of Welsh culture. It won’t happen any other way.
If you have a question for Gary Raymond about the life of Wales Arts Review email him at gary@walesartsreview.org
Thank you Adam Somerset for that question. Adam is friend of WAR and one of the few contributors to have written for Wales Arts Review for the duration of its life.
Gary Raymond is a novelist, author, playwright, critic, and broadcaster. In 2012, he co-founded Wales Arts Review, was its editor for ten years, and is currently its executive editor. His latest book, Abandon All Hope: A Personal Journey Through the History of Welsh Literature is available for pre-order and is out in May 2024 with Calon Books
Thank you Gary for all you have been doing for and about the culture of Wales
Who would have thought that football could lead to culture?