So farewell then, Sphinx

My favourite little press mag, Sphinx, has closed down its print edition, after five years and twelve issues, in part migrating to www.happenstancepress.com. Fittingly, this magazine focusing on the small press world had black endpapers. The last issue includes interviews with editors at Salt, Two Ravens, Candlestick and Templar. Gerry Cambridge from Dark Horse talks about typesetting, Tess Rainsford reports on the lively Scottish poetry pamphlet scene while Eleanor Livingstone discusses the Scottish poetry festival StAnza. There is more, but that should be enough to encourage anyone interested in small presses to order this issue from the website above, and if you are feeling flush to buy some of the back issues. Helena Nelson, one of the few but increasing numbers of women editors in the small press world, deserves congratulations for running something that covers "our" world, and Sphinx is going out with a bumper issue. £3.50 well spent. You may have to fiddle about a bit on their website though, clicking on issue 12 I get 9. But you can manage.

The penultimate Sphinx

My fave lit mag has just arrived, Sphinx, edited by the Scottish poet and publisher Helena Nelson. This is Sphinx 11, and after 12 the mag will go completely on line, as part of the http://www.happenstance.com/ site. The mag's review already appear there. I presume that Sphinx loses more money in a print form than being put on-line for free access. But it is a nice print form, handy A5 with coloured endpapers, in keeping with its stated aim of promoting chapbooks. This edition though covers a range of small presses - primarily through interviews with the editors of Shearsman, Red Squirrel, Oystercatcher, tall-lighthouse, The Poetry Business, Gray Hen and a feature with an ex-worker from the letterpress printer Barbarian Books.

Essential reading for other nosy small press editors of course, but those who write for small presses, or wish to, should read this edition particularly. £3.50 well spent. You can buy all the back issues on the Happenstance site, though the current one is not on their shop yet so you may have to resort to good old fashioned cheques.

I would email Helena Nelson to plead with her to keep the mag in a print format, other than I did that when the decision to go on-line was first announced. She did not weaken.