People Stay Close When They Think About Each Other

The idea of the literary magazine emerged four years ago. It was in the ruin pub of the 7th district when we, the core team of future Panel, discussed the possible name of the magazine, and it was Duncan, who said, while sipping a beer: “How about Panel?”

Panel it is.

Over these few years Panel published – roughly - over 150 authors and artists from different parts of the region, from the Balkans to the Baltic. Marking the fourth year of Panel's life, we asked some of the contributors from the first issues of Panel, what they are up to these days.

Matthew Daintrey-Hall ("City of Smiles", issue 1):

“The biggest thing has been actually finishing the first draft of my novel! Four and a half years after I first started to write stories set in the fictional world of the Spread (debuting at the Budapest Creative Writing group), I finally reached the end! Currently re-writing the first 100 pages (which is now more like 200 pages - arrghh, how can it be getting longer!) adding in drama, risk, high stakes and removing long passages of info-dumping (always the curse of a sci-fi writer!)

And I also finally have a groovy title: "If Not The Intensified Sky".

I'm hoping to get the first chapters exciting and gripping and compelling, and sent out to publishers before the summer.

I've also got a piece in MediaMagazine ( a journal aimed at 14-19 year olds and their teachers) being published in February, called ''Flaming Creatures: Queer Lives in Silent Film''.

Tom Bass (“Birds and Traffic”, issue 3):

''I’m writing a longhand journal series called “The 10 Commandments”. Each journal is one sentence, about 100 pages. I’m on Book 8. Each covers about 6-8 months of travel, reading, gardens, family, dreams, loosely biblical in themes but not religious. It’s about growing up and being an adult. Typing them would be a nightmare – my handwriting!

I have one piece basically ready, 20,000 words creative nonfiction on Buffalo Bill in Eastern Europe with photos, clips and more.

My achievement would be to find any time at all to write. I’m heavily over employed”.

Kerry Tyrrell (“The Premonition”, issue 4; the shortlist of the 2021 Ruritania prize):

“Most of my writing time these days is spent making small changes/edits/touch-ups to a novel I finished writing 18 months ago. I sent it to a small list of publishers at the time, and it was largely met with silence, although every now and then I received a polite rejection note. I have a few short story fragments lying around that I hope to finish, but these are not a priority for me at the moment.

While finishing something to a standard that pleases me is undeniably an achievement of sorts, I tend to think, rightly or wrongly, that the only real achievement that matters is publishing one's work”.

Bence Szenderák (short short poems, issue 4):

''I had a translation of Jericho Brown's poem "Again" published in Apokrif, though I have no time to get deeper into translation as an activity – I'm quite busy as a full-time editor of Jelenkor Publishing House, so I for sure can't complain''.

Christie Goodwin (poems, issue 4):

“I'm currently getting my MFA in poetry from Boston University. I'm teaching an undergraduate creative writing course, and I'm working on my first collection of poems. Since my publications in Panel, my work has been published in Fahmidan Journal and Rust+Moth. I'm trying to branch out a bit with my poetry, and I've been writing more science fiction and satirical poetry as of late”.

Savo Bojovic (poems, issue 1):

“Last year I won an award for the best regional debut manuscript (pertaining to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro) for my novel "Put Lu?ice". It has has been published since, and later nominated, as well as longlisted for the NIN award. The novel is in Serbian, but I'm currently hoping that there will be enough interest in the coming year for additional printings and translations of the book.”

Thank you, dear contributors, for sharing your news and updates. We are enormously thankful for the good words that you said about Panel and its team (and that we didn't include, because we're humble people).

Unfortunately, we could not reach all our previous authors. If you are one of our contributors, a writer, a poet or a visual artist, and want to share your news – PLEASE DO, and we'll make another publication about our authors on the site and on Facebook page.

Because people stay close when they think about each other.

Illustration for the post - Eszter Fruzsina, issue 1.