Local Magazine Tackles The Future Of Writing
‘Evasion’, the arty e-zine once claimed by a Ponsonby poet as being ‘better than a blog’, has just published its third
online instalment. This event also coincides with the first new print collection of work from the series, titled
‘evasion – life advanced’.
The theme for this month is ‘future fictions’ with work from local science fiction legend Phillip Mann, along with
comment and editorial from Malcolm Burgess, James McGoram and Jean McGeorge. The prolific Jack Ross steps in with some
spacey poetry and there’s more fiction from Thomas Mitchell & Pip Robertson.
Says Malcolm Burgess, editor at large,
“Science fiction is literature’s dirty little secret. We wanted to explore issues of legitimacy in writing, you know,
high-art versus low, pulp versus polish. All art is about the alien, and new is just waiting to be old anyway. So it
seemed appropriate that we give some space to new Sci-fi writing.”
The editors were thrilled to have Phillip Mann involved, giving evasion it’s first opportunity to print a well-known
author side by side with relative unknowns. Indeed, they have already noted a strong response from the online
readership, with submissions of material still trickling in, though they officially closed for submissions three weeks
ago.
“Perhaps we need to revisit this theme later in the year,” says Malcolm, “it ’s certainly proving our most popular
release yet, and there’s plenty of scope for more debate.”
Malcolm has planned a range of challenging themes for the year, including the chance for writers to ‘kill their idols’,
and to tackle historical fiction much in the manner that they have sci-fi.
Meanwhile, the readership of evasion continues to expand, with people signing on from Canada & Hawaii to the Gold Coast. Says James McGoram, the founder of evasion; “It’s as if we should have done this all along.
Technology has truly given us an edge we would otherwise never have been able to afford…”
Visit http://www.evasion.co.nz to read, sign-up or order your copy today