Bravado 17 is now on sale

Once again the courier wakes me by bouncing boxes onto my front deck. As soon as his van drives off, I tiptoe out in my nightie with knife in hand to rip open the top carton and pull out a copy of Bravado 17.

Since the editors decided on full colour covers, Bravado has delighted us with its gallery of Bay artists now faithfully displayed online. B17 is no exception, featuring Maori moko in bold russet and black against an artfully-shaded background with bronze title. The artwork is by Dion Seeling (with cover design by Dianne Cullen Smith of Word for Word.) Inside Dion is interviewed by Kirsten Cliff, our ‘roving arts reporter’. Seeling discusses the trauma that brought him to art; what art is doing for him, and what he’s doing for art.

This November issue has another plus: prizewinning entries from the 6^th Bravado International Poetry Competition, carefully chosen by judge Sue Wootton from a massive entry of 703 anonymous poems. No doubt this record number was partly inspired by our introduction of a Special Prize for an Unpublished Poet. Carol Cromie, our inaugural winner, was also Highly Commended for another poem.

Turn to Bravado’s centre pages and you’ll discover what makes a prizewinning poem.

Read other poems by other writers. Read all ten stories – yes, ten, and this at a time when the fiction market is steadily shrinking. Read our regular columnists, too - Peter Dashwood with another Sharp Point, and Marcel Currin’s witty end-page, The Petri-Dish.

One of the many purposes of a literary magazine is to give writers a stage on which to strut their stuff. Bravado is an outlet for the wealth of words that tumble out from the writer’s mind onto the page. And Bravado gets a massive volume of international submissions - some exceedingly good – that could fill our pages.

But we’ve decided we want to be wholly New Zealand, a literary journal showcasing work by New Zealanders at home or abroad. We’ll include work by Australian and Pacific writers to reflect that unique voice that makes us ‘New Zealanders’, whatever our nationality. So from B18, due out in March 2010, wholly New Zealand is exactly what we’ll be.

Without Bravado, New Zealanders would have fewer chances of publications, which is especially important for first-time and emerging writers. If you think this doesn’t matter, buy a single copy and let us change your mind. If you already know it does, consider taking out a subscription. (Still the cheapest way to get Bravado.) Though generously funded by Creative New Zealand, it is our regular subscribers who matter most to all of us here at Bravado.