HERE: HP-09-07-009

Although the ice-skating season is well underway in the frozen Netherlands, Versal is being read in warmer climes by South African Liesl Jobson and her friends. They took a HERE copy of Versal 7 with them to St James' Beach in Cape Town to re-read during a Christmas Day picnic. Thank you for the photos, Liesl.

HERE: HP-09-07-023

ID number: HP-09-07-023
Location: St. Catharines & Algonquin Park, ON, Canada
Reader: Magdolene Dykstra




Versal ID HP-09-07-023 started with me on the plane from
Amsterdam to St. Catharines, ON - and on to Algonquin Park (ON).

I found the only way to respond to these this collection was to
respond visually to particular pieces.





Versal and my visual responses will travel with my sister
to Japan and S. Korea. It will be left with her friend in S.K.

Versal ID HP-09-07-023 was well loved and well worn.

HERE: HP-09-07-007

ID number: HP-09-07-007
Location: near Missoula, Montana, USA
Readers: Audra Loyal & Amy Capolupo (& dog Moses)

July 11 chat:

Audra: we took Versal Here out for a spin today on our date
me: where did you two go?
Audra: just to 8 mile up the blackfoot
took moses to the river
read versal and some trashy mags that amy got at the store
then went to red bird wine bar
and a movie at the wilma
me: oh, that sounds so nice
Audra: it was
me: could we call you in a little bit maybe?
Audra: the river was still a little cold for my taste
me: on skype?
Audra: hang on, we're trying to decide what time
is an hour and a half from now too late for you guys?
we have to do a few things and then we'll be free
me: nope that should be good
cool
Audra: cool it's a date
me: ttyl

Highlights from July 11 Skype call:

Amy and Audra spent the afternoon by the Blackfoot river, just off highway 200, before Rainbow Bend. They watched floaters go by, but it was still too cold for them to float. Moses went in the river and enjoyed herself. Audra enjoyed about 20% of the work in Versal 7. She found some of the poetry akin to the Laborist movement in art, which she finds somewhat infuriating. But everyone agreed 20% enjoyment is a good number for a journal of this size. Additionally, as Audra read the poems she would flip back to see the authors' bios and coincidentally enough, the one she liked best was also by a bookbinder, Lizzi Thistlethwayte. Her other fave was by current University of Montana MFA in creative writing candidate, Lehua M. Taitano. Can we say connections, connections? Along with enjoying some fine poetry, fiction and art, the ladies also learned about jealousy and Winnie Cooper the math wiz in Psychology Today and Sunset magazine. After the river, they enjoyed delicious Indian food at the Red Bird's wine bar. After the Red Bird they saw the film Moon at the Wilma theater and highly recommend it, along with Closet Land.

Audra runs The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

HERE: HP-09-05-004

ID number: HP-09-05-004
Location: Buenos Aires
Reader: Laura Chalar

Hey everyone,

After a brief sojourn in my hometown of Montevideo, this copy of Versal 5 reached Buenos Aires in the luggage of my brother, Martín, come to visit me with his girlfriend Aline.

In this picture, Versal 5 shares the spotlight with two not-so-unlikely partners: the singing toad we bought in South Africa during our honeymoon and Mr. Thomas Gainsborough, a beloved artist.

The journey's starting soon!

Laura

HERE: HP-09-05-001

ID number: HP-09-05-001
Location: Paris
Reader: Pauline Chevalier

I'm very excited about our first HERE post. Thanks to Pauline, who has sent in some photos of a HERE copy of Versal 5, which she has been wandering around Paris with. We look forward to hearing more about where HP-09-05-001 travels to, and about the other roving HERE copies. Email us at here@wordsinhere.com with text, sound, images, video, artwork etc.

A bit more about the HERE project

Perhaps something as simple and open-ended as HERE isn’t so much a project as a starting point: we’re giving away 100 copies of Versal 5, 6 and 7 in the hope that they make their way to far-flung places and people. We want to be surprised about where and when Versal pops up in the world, so we’re encouraging the readers of these numbered and labelled copies to respond to us in any way they like. We’ll see where things go from there.

The HERE plan, inspired by initiatives such as Bookcrossing, was born one evening when a few of us were in the park. We were talking about expanding our distribution and finding different ways to pepper the globe with Versals (rather than simply stock-piling surplus back issues in Megan and Shayna’s flat). Our bookshop and online sales are vital to ensuring that people who know about us can get their hands on a copy, and these sales help us to recoup some of our printing costs. But in a time of economic recession, we can’t count on a lot of sales. Furthermore, shipping Versal (particularly outside of Europe) is very expensive.

To reduce postage costs, we already ask friends and editors to take copies with them when they’re travelling overseas. The HERE project is really a more organic, non-time-sensitive extension of this process, and a way to expand our readership amongst people who have never heard of Versal. Encouraging journals to be passed from hand to hand reduces transportation costs – both financial and environmental – and increases the number of readers per copy. I’m sure some people who currently buy Versal pass it on to friends, but the gifting of it is made easier (and perhaps more fun) when it never really belongs to any one person. The HERE Versal copies will improve the more scuffed and dog-eared they become; fingerprint smudges and coffee-cup stains will add to rather than detract from their value. And while we are happy to let these copies simply get lost in the world, we are also excited about the vagrant Versals’ “postcards home” in whatever form they take.

Breaking even is essential for our continuation, but profits are not – we are more interested in producing a journal that we’re proud of, which is read and appreciated by as many people as possible, which attracts quality international submissions. So if we are not driven by profit, why should we then adhere to distribution and sales methods of the commercial publishing world, in which much of the success of a book or publication is measured in terms of number of copies sold rather than total number of readers?

Fewer copies – less paper and ink, less air-freight – with more readers per copy. It might make sense in the long term. The HERE project will hopefully tell us more about what happens when a literary journal is allowed to wander.

Versal in the air

In a few hours' time we'll be launching the seventh issue of Versal at the Sugar Factory. Poets Jennifer K. Dick and Rufo Quintavalle have traveled up from Paris, and writer Rita Buckley has flown in from Boston – converging here in Amsterdam for a night of revelry.

This blog is obviously a new step for Versal. With it, we hope to join the lively online literary dialogues, adding our two cents from our perspective "here". Our editors will contribute thoughts about our submission review process and the wide(ning) aesthetic that Versal seeks out. We also hope to invite contributors from Versal's pages past and present to enter into the discussion. In the end, I guess it's just a blog – and in that sense also a bit of an experiment for us.

In this first post, I am also excited to introduce the HERE project. Starting today, copies of Versals old and new will be passed into the hands of a number of potential readers around the world. The project is simple: read & pass on. These copies are marked and numbered, and readers are encouraged (but not obligated) to contact us with their responses: text, image, video, sound...These responses, when received, will be posted on this blog.

In the coming days, we'll be writing more about the HERE project and how&why it came about. And, generally, getting this blog off the proverbial ground. Comments encouraged.