Launch of Swerve Magazine

Assumpta Curran, Janet Heeran and Jordan McCarthy, three of the contributing writers to Swerve Magazine, will read at this event and will be in conversation with Matthew Geden. Swerve Magazine brings together writers who met during the pandemic in Zoom workshops facilitated by Matthew Geden, poet and writer-in-residence at Cork County Libraries. Matthew managed to turn a motley crew of experienced, less experienced and absolute beginners into a group of committed writers for whom the collaborative experience was life changing. Swerve Magazine grew out of this extraordinary situation when it was brought home to us how writing and all forms of culture can be a source of consolation in times of trauma. The first issue of Swerve is an anthology of the writing that came out of those groups.

 

Why Swerve? Firstly, in homage to Verve Magazine, a literary journal that was published in Paris in the 1930s and, secondly, because the title encapsulates the sudden change of direction in our lives during lockdown. Swerve’s designer, Mich Maroney, owns a copy of the last issue of Verve that came out of France in 1940 during WW2, just before the fall of Paris. It is a treasured possession and was the inspiration for the format of the magazine that seeks to give equal weight to the visual image. It is a savage irony that Swerve is being launched as we watch in disbelief whilst Europe is once again threatened by totalitarianism and war. We feel that the arts are crucial in countering this spirit of destruction and nationalistic inward-looking. It is our aim to publish new and emerging writing but another, equally important, ambition is to publish works in translation. It seems essential that the arts should strive to build bridges, foster understanding and transcend boundaries and it is our intention that future issues of Swerve Magazine will contribute to this ethos. We hope to achieve it by emphasizing translated works by international writers and, in conjunction with powerful visual images, create an impactful experience for our readers.