Stack Magazines

Osman Bari is founder, editor and designer of Chutney, a magazine that provides a platform for underrepresented voices to tell stories about cultural identity, colonialism and migration. We met up to speak about his ideas behind the magazine, the influence of food on the title, and his own changing status of settler and immigrant, and how being in London affected the stories he wanted to tell.

Recorded in August 2023 for our Stack Magazine Club, this conversation with editors Aliza Abarbanel and Tanya Bush explores Cake Zine, the magazine we delivered to our subscribers in July 2023. Telling the story of the literary food magazine so far, they explain how they started in the pandemic with their Sexy Cake issue, then released Wicked Cake in time for Hallowe'en last year, before switching to Humble Pie for this third issue.

The first issue of Te was published in 2021 and it caught my eye because it seemed to be doing something clever with food publishing: Its stories are about the different ways that ingredients can travel around the world, or the different values and associations that might be attributed to particular dishes, and so the whole thing seemed to be using the conventions of a food magazine as a sort of Trojan horse for telling stories about people and cultural anthropology. I assumed the second issue would use food in a similar way, but when I picked it up I realised that this was no longer a magazine about food, and the focus had switched to sound. Intrigued by the change, I spoke with founder and editor Michael Guo to hear about his thinking behind the project.

Recorded at Indiecon in Hamburg, editors Vasudhaa Narayanan and Tarini Sethi speak about The Irregular Times, their playful and provocative newspaper dedicated to platforming the creative work and everyday activities of people of colour across India and beyond.

Recorded live at Indiecon 2023, hear from the team at Solomiya, the extraordinary magazine made by young people in Ukraine who are documenting and coming to terms with what it means to be at war. I’m a huge fan of what the team are doing with this magazine – I note in my introduction that I’ve never seen a magazine like this being made by people who are at war, and that’s a large part of what makes it so extraordinary. But it’s also skilfully made, thrillingly creative and often painfully honest, making it an absolute must-read.

Recorded live at Issues in San Francisco on Saturday 5th November, hear Anja Charbonneau (Broccoli), Victor Gonzalez (Gross) and Michael Ray (Zoetrope) discussing their work publishing independent magazines on the West Coast of the USA.

Recorded at our Independent Magazine Fair on Saturday 14th May, this episode of the Stack podcast focuses on the independent magazine makers that are trying to change the world for the better. Evar Hussayni, senior editor of Azeema; Ellie Jackson, editor of The Movement Movement; and Nina Carter, co-creative director of It's Freezing in LA! all speak about what they do and why it matters.

Recorded live at our Independent Magazine Fair on Saturday 14th May 2022, this panel discussion features advice from the unconventional magazine makers behind Real Review, A Profound Waste of Time and Paperboy.

Recorded at our Independent Magazine Fair, this panel discussion features expert advice from the people behind Delayed Gratification, Season Zine, and The Modernist.

Martha Dillon is editor of It’s Freezing in LA!, the magazine about climate change that recently published its eighth issue, themed around ‘Borders’. I spoke to her a couple of weeks after COP26 came to an end and I was interested to hear her thoughts on the conference, as well as the wider climate change conversation and how greater interest in the subject is allowing them to be more ambitious in what they’re doing.