Luke Frostick: Editor 

The regularity and length of my editorials fluctuate. Some months I don’t have very much to say beyond, “hey, some new articles stories and poetry. They are great. Read.” This is not one of those months. 

Lets start of with the literature festival, it is always fun to attend the opening bash and take advantage of the free beer they offer there. However, what I really like about the festival is the opportunity to host an event. This year I got the chance to talk to the legendary writer Burhan Sönmez about his process. I’m still working on long form fiction it is a brutal and often lonely process. Thus, having the chance to talk to somebody who has been through it all and come out the other side with treasure was a real honour. 

Now I need to start thinking about who I want to talk to next year. 

It has been an interesting few months in the Spoken Word Community of Istanbul. One of the things that keeps me going to Istanbuls famous open mic night is the creative offshoots that grow from there. The Bosphorus Review is certainly one of them. The latest mutation is the Istanbul poetry slam. The founder, Eli, possibly sensibly, waved away my suggested name of “Istslambul”! As readers of this magazine will know I have always trusted other people to handle the poetry in the BROB, as I’m not a writer of poetry and I’m way to ignorant to judge its merits. However, I do like an occasional Haiku or dirty limericks, so I went to the slam, and it was great. Watching talented poets battling their rhymes and stanzas like Pokemon was a lot of fun and I hope Eli keeps it going. I was particularly happy to see long time Bosphorus Review contributor Paz win! If you are interested our poetry editor Liam interviewed Eli about the competition.

Next! The book! For a while now we have been working on an anthology of the Bosphorus Review of Books and it is finally finished. I think that the work that we have been doing at the review is important and to see it in book form with the Turkish translations is an amazing thing. There are so many people to whom I owe thanks to, but the first should be Merve. Without her translations we wouldn’t have had a book at all. Secondly, to Thomas and Erica my long suffering co-editors. Next, Harry, he did a cover for the magazine when it was in its foetal form so it was appropriate that he did the cover for our fist book. Though, I don’t think he realised the hurricane of work that was heading his way when I sidled up to him on facebook with a “hey cousin… you busy at the moment…?” Nearly there, Although, Merve did the lions share of the translation work, all sorts of people chipped in to help out, thanks to all of you. Last but not least the writers, they did the work in the first place and without them taking a chance on a new journal what seems like an age ago there wouldn’t have been a book in the first place. 

You can buy it here! or here! Do it now!

This months cover of the magazine was done by the amazing Reimena Yee. I fell in love with her comics a while ago and interviewed her for the magazine. I was very honoured when she agreed to do this months cover. I like it as it is so different to everything we’ve had before and because I can help but imagine that a lot of Turkish writers secretly imagine themselves looking like that. 

You can find more of her work here. Or follow her on the twitters @reimenayee.

Do I have space to write about this edition of the magazine? Yes I do… Its got stories, articles and poetry. They are great. Read! … nailed it…