Lockjaw Magazine’s inaugural issue will be coming out in late 2014/early 2015. General submissions are currently open. For more information, visit lockjawmagazine.com. Here’s an introduction to who they are.

Christina Collins, Poetry Editor: I was sitting in my brand-new apartment in Minneapolis a few days after I’d moved here from Seattle more or less on a whim, feeling the first pangs of deep loneliness that come from realizing you’ve left nearly everything you knew behind, when I thought “no, you didn’t, your writing life is infinitely portable and means nothing in terms of physical location.” So I started doing a lot of reading, and a lot of writing, and really trying to connect with that community. I graduated with my MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop in 2010 and since then had sort of dropped away from that life, only to realize, years later, that it was something that had always brought me happiness. That, coupled with my deep love of crafting mixtapes, was what brought me around to the idea of starting up a journal. Well, loneliness, mixtapes, and the realization that nobody was publishing exactly what I wanted to be reading. So loneliness, mixtapes, and ego, which I (naturally) think is perfectly valid.  I mentioned it here and there, and then Dave, who I knew from working in the nonprofit arts where everyone’s a working artist in their real life, sent me a message along the lines of “so you’re starting a litmag, huh?” Which was fantastic, because he and I have a really consonant taste when it comes to literature—one of my favorite memories is of him staying at my house in Seattle for a week waiting for a visa, when we’d sit up late making stacks of books on the dining-room table that we each really needed to read right now, and more often than not (read: every time) he was dead accurate in his recommendations. So I trusted his taste, and was delighted that he was interested. I’d also been thinking about asking our friend Alex—who has a fantastic track record for knowing the weirdest, best music I’ve never heard and also makes art that I’ve always liked—to be the music and art editor, since I really wanted to make sure those things had a focus in the journal. Continue reading →