West Coast Magazine

"West Coast Magazine" (1987-1998). [This article is written by founder editor, Joe Murray, and is accurate as far as memory serves him] was a 3 times a year Scottish literary publication consisting of poetry, short fiction, articles, essays and reviews. Founding editors were Gordon Giles, Kenny MacKenzie and Joe Murray. The proof issue appeared in October 1987 and contained some articles and poems that did not appear in official issues. West Coast Magazine (WCM) was initially funded by East Glasgow Gear Project and Glasgow City Council; ultimately funded by the Scottish Arts Council.

WCM was probably the first Scottish literary magazine fully produced pre-press in-house to a professional standard, and was the forerunner, in this sense, for many similar Scottish literary publications that came after it. The main aim of West Coast was to help promote new writers and new writing in Scotland, though it did not exclusively publish Scottish writers or writers resident in Scotland – writers from all over the world contributed to its content. Established writers such as Alasdair Gray [Alasdair Gray http://alasdairgray.co.uk ] (short fiction and poetry), Agnes Owens (short fiction and poetry), Janice Galloway (short fiction) [Janice Galloway http://www.galloway.1to1.org/] , Freddie Anderson, (articles and poetry), Alison Prince (poetry) [Alison Prince http://www.alisonprince.co.uk/] , Dominic Behan (poetry) [Dominic Behan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Behan] , James Kelman (interview and article) [James Kelman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kelman] , Kenneth White (poetry, articles), all of whom also provided great encouragement to the project. New writers who were beginning to produce works of note were featured, such as: Des Dillon (short fiction and poetry) [Des Dillon http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Authors/Des-Dillon] , Brian Whittingham [Brian Whittingham http://brianwhittingham.co.uk] (poetry), Jim Ferguson (short fiction and poetry), Irvine Welsh (short fiction) [Irvine welsh http://www.irvinewelsh.net/ ] and Graham Fulton (poetry), among others.

WCM Production Team: John Cunningham (Proof-reader, Distribution and Reviewer), Jan Dalton (Administration, Proof-reader and Reviewer), Maud Devine (Proof-reader and Distribution), Gordon Giles (Typesetting, Layout and Design and Reviewer), Kenny MacKenzie (Typesetting, Layout and Design and Reviewer), Alan Mason (Design), Joe Murray (Typesetting, Layout and Design and Reviewer), Tam O'Hara (Word Processing), Ellen Shearer (Word Processing).

WCM Editorial Staff: due to work commitments Joe Murray left the magazine after helping to complete Issue Three but returned at the publication of Issue Four. Gordon Giles left during production of Issue Six to pursue a career in Community Education; from Issue Nine till Issue Thirteen an editorial board chose most of the work for the magazine. This group consisted of Margaret Fulton Cook, John Cunningham, Graham Fulton, Ronnie Smith and Brian Whittingham with Joe Murray as Managing Editor. Kenny MacKenzie became associate editor from Issue Ten onwards. From Issue Fourteen Joe Murray continued as Managing Editor with Brian Whittingham as poetry editor.

WCM also produced many writers' events such as readings and talks – mainly in pubs – many of these during Glasgow City of Culture festival in 1990.

All of the poetry and poetry reviews published in West Coast Magazine can be found on the Scottish Poetry Library's website [WCM Poetry Index at the Scottish Poetry Library http://slic1.cdlr.strath.ac.uk:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=11X96222M80I1.242868&menu=search&aspect=power&npp=10&ipp=20&spp=20&profile=spi&ri=&term=&index=.SPITK&aspect=power&term=&index=.SPIAK&term=&index=.SPISK&term=West+Coast+Magazine&index=.SPINUW&sort=&x=15&y=12#focus ]

A spin-off of WCM in 1991 was "Taranis Books" which was successfully edited and managed by Kenny MacKenzie producing around two-dozen books before being put to sleep in 2000.After a dispute over Arts Council funding, WCM published the final Double Issue (27-28) in 1998.

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