There's a certain time in most English majors' lives when they fall in love with little magazines and journals, those publications that give new writers their starts and sustain more established scribes. The history is illustrious: The Dial. Poetry. Paris Review. New Directions Review. The North American Review. The Iowa Review. So many reviews, so many quarterlies. Some last for years, decades, while others are fleeting. Some are afliliated with institutions, like UCI's Faultline and IVC's own Ear (poised to celebrate its 40th birthday this year!) while others publish independently. To the writers and readers, the contents of such journals are precious, whether handmade and stapled or perfect bound or, increasingly these days, published online..
Orange County is now home to a new journal. Welcome to Citric Acid! The quarterly is the brainchild of Red Emma who has more time to do more good works now that he has retired. And the welcome has been warm.
This Sunday's LA Times featured a write-up from Gabriel San Román:
"New ‘Citric Acid’ quarterly journal gives O.C. some literary tart"He writes:
Tonkovich is...readying the launch of “Citric Acid,” a new online literary journal debuting this weekend. Its inauguration is a highly curated assemblage of the county’s contemporary scribes ready to kick off the publication’s mission one quarterly issue at a time.
“I’d like it to be a cultural clearinghouse that introduces the best of Orange County,” Tonkovich said. “It’s very much a DIY project that explores multiple genres, but I like to keep the adjective ‘literary’ in there to distinguish us from more journalistic sources. ‘Literary’ is an affectation, but it’s a helpful word. It attracts a certain variety of readers.”
Don Leach's photo features Red and managing editor Jaime Campbell posed in the charming messy backdrop of Red and Rebel Girl's living room:
It's a nice way to start the challenging new year.
The first issue opens with the three writers of the newly published A People's Guide to Orange County (UC Press): Elaine Lewinnek (CSU Fullerton), Thuy Vo Dang (UCI) and Gustavo Arellano (LA Times, and who knows, may one of these days, IVC's commencemnet speaker. A girl can hope). In "Pulling Back the Orange Curtain: The Authors of A People's Guide to Orange County Reflect on Their Process," the trio does just that. Other contributors include OC's new poet laureates, Natalie Graham and Tina Mai, IVC alum Mary Camarillo and Laguna Beach College of the Arts professor Grant Hier. Rebel Girl also contributes "False Flag," a short story about last year's insurrection, with an O.C. angle. Other writers include Victoria Patterson writing about four uncomfortable family meals at iconic Newport Beach restuarants and Fullerton Observer's Jesse La Tour, Grant Hoskins' comic and Red's own appreciation of CSULB's Peter Carr, artist and poet.
Check out the first issue by clicking here.
And subscribe! It's free.
And please, encourage Roy to write up his epic on the Shooting Star which would be the perfect OC mystery crime serial!
