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Calling all writers/non-writers/makers of things! Issue #3 of The Tide is in the works and this time the theme is THE IN-BETWEEN.

We’re after submissions that deal with the idea of borders, negative space, liminality, waiting, indefinability, compromise, ambiguity, travel, etc. - interpret the theme however you see fit - the stranger the better! 

Short stories are welcome, as are poems. Comic strips too! As long as it’s printable and on topic, we’re open to anything. Surprise us! We’re also hoping to read submissions by those new to the writing game as well as veterans, so don’t feel intimidated if you haven’t really written before. The Tide is all about expressing yourself by trying out new creative endeavours.

We’re setting an ideal deadline for the end of May. If you’ve got any questions you can drop us an e-mail at tidezine69@gmail.com or tweet @downerlithour.

You can read the first two issues of our zine here or buy a physical copy here!

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Issue #2 is here! Get it while it's hot 🔥🔥🔥

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Design for the cover of issue #2 of The Tide, a collective writing/illustration zine I compile with some buds! The illustration here is (ofc) by Kate. 

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Words by Joshua Blackman. ‘Odysseus and the Therapist’ is continued in issue #2 of The Tide (’Odysseys’).

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HIERONYMUS

I should like to know Death, if only briefly. An August afternoon, perhaps, tea for two, a rose garden. Two cups, raised in unison: a toast to Life. It's a damn shame she could not make it, Death would pine in the absence of his beloved. And I, with the devil in my smile: You, my dear - a sentimentalist? I would have scarce taken you for one. Then he, with tears in his eyes: And how could you, Finch? How could you? Only those who have known love could ever understand its torments.

   But I have known Love and I have known Death, and they are one and the same.

Words and illustration by Bel Aguas. ‘Hieronymus’ is continued in issue #2 of The Tide (’Odysseys’).

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Jennifer Evans

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Because, In A Way, You Can Never Really Go Back Anywhere, I Suppose?

Weird things happen near water. Since I was a kid I’ve enjoyed sitting here with my feet hanging over the water of Cobh bay and watching the ships far out in the distance as they sail off into what’s either horizon or mist or, later on, the simple limitations of my poor vision (I’d picked up a habit of staring into the sun as a kid. I think that fucked it). Hear the rustic bustle of a seaside Irish town whose economy still relies on boats, the coming and going of feet and voices, the white noise of waves. See the sharp shadows of fish underneath, and so much moving water. Time passes by like listening to a song. It’s one of those childhood pleasures that somehow stuck around whilst everything else contorted into the unrecognisable.

   Right before the incident in question I was watching the exact same thing, drunk (drunk is childlike, everyone knows this) at age 20, and home from uni for the summer with the same school friends I’ve been drunk and chatting over the water with before and before: Eoin, Eamon, Erin and Erin’s girlfriend from her Uni in England who’s called Elizabeth and who we refer to as that rather than Elly, as she originally introduced herself, because Elly sounds too much like my own name – Emmy, by the way – and because she’s got the sort of posh accent that’s so cutglass it sounds like it would ring in the air the way your ears do after a loud noise, the sort of accent that could only pour out of an Elizabeth.

   We were drinking beer and throwing the bottles as far as we could over the water when we finished (We’re terrible people: we’ve learned, with time, to accept this). I was phasing through drunk thoughts (boys and my car and regretting my degree choice and the TV show Hey Arnold!) and Erin was broadly announcing hers out loud (something about the Titanic and how much it defined Cobh by being the last place it left from and her vague drunk thoughts regarding this) when our attention was brought to the strange thing happening. 

(cont. in The Tide #2)

Rory McCarthy

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The first issue of the Tide is now available to read in its entirety online over here! Don’t forget, you can also get a physical copy at this link.

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The Weekend

I mixed my blood into the soil Down by the roots Maybe something beautiful will grow My walls Fell down When I noticed the brickwork behind the wallpaper Which had weathered into the fine indents Of Mortar And that all night I lied and stole Kisses In plain view I could have done with some walls then I could have done with protection From these nights Which begin with me knowing how they’re going to end With you Kissing me awake And me Kissing you away But then you look at me With smiling eyes And hold me at crooked-arm’s length Lingering on goodbye That gaze Will last an eternity Burnt into my retinas Like a thought which should never have occurred But may be something beautiful And maybe something beautiful will grow I mixed my blood into the soil Down by the roots.

Alice Brace

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How To Drive A Manual Car At 22 Years Old With No College Degree

‘Sitting in that McDonald’s parking lot, I knew everything was about to change.’ is a weird sentence to see written out, especially if it’s one you consider using as the introduction to a deeply personal essay in which you attempt to get your audience to sympathize with your struggles to accept life shifting beneath your feet.

For one, it’s hardly long enough. It omits many significant details like how you were sitting in your 2003 GMC Envoy which you had named Lars 5 months earlier when your father gave it to you, or how Lars had started shaking suddenly and quite violently on Georgia 400 as you were returning from your father’s 50th birthday celebration on July 12, 2014. It doesn’t indicate that the realization hit you as you were calling your father and step-mother to come rescue you, because you were too nervous to drive the remainder of the way back to your mother’s apartment. It doesn’t delve into the half hour of waiting and panicking and fiddling with your phone as you volleyed between giving your parents your location and negotiating with your partners (Starbucks for ‘co-workers’) to get your shift covered the following morning.

Sure, it’s an eye-catching introductory statement, but where’s the pathos? Where in those 13 words does it say that you felt like vomiting from the anxiety of having to face your father again about having no money set aside to pay for your car to get fixed? Hell, going back and looking at it, you don’t even mention your father. Isn’t that what this essay was essentially going to be about? Wasn’t your aim to show how your interactions with your father and step-mother and mother that night and the two subsequent weeks have led you into a new sort of chapter of your life full of uncertainty? Don’t you think maybe someone in your audience could have the same sort of doubts about their life, or perhaps even likelier, the same sort of fears of disappointing their parents? Why don’t you try and reach for their sympathy?

Well, it might be somewhat difficult to achieve that with a sentence like that at the top of your page. A sentence with a format so rudimentary and overdone, that when you see one like it, you’re likely to know exactly what’s coming.

First come the immediate results, like the lectures filled with such fervent frustration about your poor economical habits and your irresponsibility towards yourself and your family, and how living with one set of parents would have had you on the right path as opposed to the one you were currently following living with the other. All this you received on your way back to your dad’s, at your dad’s, and on your way back home to your mom’s the next morning. It’s hard to escape talks with your parents when they’re the ones having to support you, after all.

Then comes the surprising twist, when you get word back from the mechanic a day later that Lars is irreparable.

And then the all too significant line is drawn from Point A (those three days in July) to Point B (here and now in November) where you trace your path of growth in so many steps to demonstrate that you’ve truly entered a new point in your life:

1. In the days following, your parents call you with a deal: A new car will be bought for you for around $6,000 if you can try your very best to get back into school in the fall.

2. They find you a car. It’s a 2009 Toyota Yaris. It’s under budget and economical and safe. It’s everything they want for you. But there’s one caveat: it’s a manual.

3. You find out it’s mostly too late to apply for most schools for the fall semester, so you all but give up the effort.

4. Your parents discover this fact, and in a passionate lecture over the phone, threaten to return the car. Harsh words are exchanged in harsher tones. It sticks with you.

5. They don’t return the car, and a week or two later, you retrieve the car from your father. The fact that this is your final and ultimate bailout is well established. It’s tense. Which is unfortunate, because this is the first time he’s meeting your new girlfriend.

6. Your mother drives the car back home. You’re still months from learning to drive the thing.

7. You return to daily life. Your girlfriend keeps your spirits high. She’s seemingly the only person in your life whose love doesn’t seem conditional. You hold onto her tight.

8. You stop talking to your father.

9. Two months later, you and your mom move with her boyfriend to a new beautiful house 20 minutes away from what once was home. Ironically, you live closer to your dad, to whom you’re still not talking. You don’t want him to know that you still can’t drive the damn car.

10. You begin writing. You write about music, movies, and anything else you’re passionate about. This seems like something you could do for a living. Your girlfriend encourages you. You continue to hold onto her.

11. Finally, less than a week before Thanksgiving, you scramble for an excuse not to go to your father’s for the holiday. It breaks your heart, but you fear the negative atmosphere. You fear making up for your actions. You fear your own family.

12. You don’t have everything figured out, but you’ve got a bit more certainty than you did in July. You accept responsibility in waves. A little each time.

13. As catharsis, you write an autobiographical essay to be read by everyone. You pretend proof of your new beginning is in the words, but through meta references, run-on sentences, and generally poor formatting, your audience realizes it’s really writing the essay itself that brings a new chapter to your life.

14. You still can’t drive the damn car…but maybe now you’ll talk to your dad about it.

Sean Barry

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Good afternoon! Something some friends and I have been working on for a while has finally come to fruition and I’m very excited so here, I present to you:

THE TIDE #1

The Tide is a DIY literary zine! It collects short stories, poems and assorted fiction in whatever other forms, all centered around a theme that changes every issue - for this, the first issue, we’ve gone with the theme of ‘beginnings’ for obvious and predictable reasons. 

It also features illustration from our amazing art team: Claire and Kate! Every contributor gets a cute little portrait drawn of them and some of the entries are also accompanied by lovely visuals.

The final product is, hopefully, somewhere between a literary journal and a DIY punk zine: engrossing prose and poetry stapled together with an guerilla ethos.

HOWEVER! One of my favourite things about this project is that, in this issue, alongside words written by people who would consider themselves ‘writers’, it also features a some really great pieces of writing by people who’ve never really written before! The Tide is a totally readable mini-anthology but also a bullhorn for creativity - we’re a little gang of people who love making art and want to encourage others to do it too.

So we want to get as many people involved as possible. There aren’t really any criteria you have to meet to contribute; the more diverse a range of people the better! If this all sounds like something you’d be interested in, either let me know in my Tumblr inbox or send us an e-mail over at tidezine69@gmail.com and we’ll add you into the Facebook group!

Jono x