Seaside Gothic is a magazine from the edge of the sea where the frontier of civilisation meets the wild of the water. We live beside the seaside and write amidst the changing of the tide on paper warped by the salt in the air and wet from the spray of the sea. From this divide we look for writing that expresses the sense of border living that is shared between the coast and the ocean, where language is pushed to the horizon and words take on new form as they find their home where the sea meets the sky.
There are three criteria that define seaside gothic literature:
- It is led by emotion, not reason, exploring the human experience mentally and spiritually as well as physically, and is unashamed to embrace the violence of the sea and the wind along with the beauty of the land and the sky and the ever-changing tide.
- It addresses duality—land and sea, love and hate, the beautiful and the grotesque—to reflect the structures that line the coast, which are both those solidly braced against the fiercest elements and those built from what surrounds in a state of shanty transience.
- It connects to the edge, living on the seaside either literally or figuratively, and has one foot in the water and the other on solid ground, presenting the juxtaposition of a physical border with open space and a wilderness of water that provides life yet is inconsumable.
These criteria apply as much to the language used as the narrative form. Particular attention is paid to working class and transient voices in seaside gothic literature, as although the coastline in a sense equalises those who live along it, the very nature of surviving the border of two worlds is one of struggle and displacement. Notable examples of seaside gothic literature include The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and All the Devils are Here by David Seabrook.
Strategy
Seaside Gothic launched at the dawn of 2022, the year of Soylent Green. It was created to showcase fiction, poetry, and nonfiction of its namesake genre that holds literary merit. The magazine is print-first but also offers a digital subscription option. Each year published work is nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Seaside Gothic is edited by Seb Reilly and published by Plunder.
At the end of 2023 The Totem was published as a singular newspaper event, and Treasure Hunt was launched. Treasure Hunt has not yet been solved.
As a venture Seaside Gothic is entirely non-profit, with all income being invested into paying contributors as well as future print costs and distribution. The writers, authors, poets, photographers, illustrators, and creators who submit their work to Seaside Gothic are essential to the existence of the magazine and so are the primary monetary concern. Along with offering a print magazine, Seaside Gothic is available digitally through a subscription via Patreon.
Sustainability
Seaside Gothic is committed to creating a minimal environmental impact. Issues are printed on environmentally certified paper from sustainable sources using vegetable-based inks and packaged in plastic-free envelopes where possible made from 80% recycled materials.
Postage is provided by Royal Mail Second Class in the UK and Royal Mail International Standard throughout the world to ensure a minimal carbon footprint.
The website is hosted using 100% renewable energy via a green web hosting provider and over a hundred trees have been planted as a result of Plunder, Seaside Gothic, and Seb Reilly investing in this hosting.
Availability
Seaside Gothic can be purchased online directly or in-person through bookshops.
Masthead
Editor
Seb Reilly
Staff
Elle Brown (Editorial Assistant Issues 5–6, Guest Editor Issue 7)
Emily Fletcher (Editorial Assistant Issues 9–10, Guest Editor Issue 11)
Setareh Ebrahimi (Editorial Assistant Issue 14)
ISSN 2752-7867 (Print)
ISSN 2755-001X (Digital)
SEASIDE GOTHIC
Plunder
32 High Street
Ramsgate
Kent CT11 9AG
UNITED KINGDOM
(+44) 01843 663316
Design by Seaside Gothic.
Published by Plunder.
All content © contributors and Seaside Gothic respectively.
All rights reserved.
All content is human-created and to the best of the knowledge of the Editor no part has been created using generative AI.
For avoidance of doubt, no content including, but not limited to, text and images which are published on this website or in any physical product created or distributed by Seaside Gothic can be reproduced and/or otherwise used in any manner including for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text or images, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as the content, without obtaining specific and express written permission to do so from the respective rights holder.
A CIP catalogue record of each issue of Seaside Gothic is available from the British Library.