Great Ocean Quarterly

Dear Shorebirds and Waders,

Roll the presses! Thanks to you, we can now print our Lost Eighth issue.

So before we get those presses whirring, we'll be putting the finishing touches on this glorious issue. 

Here’s a tiny slice of good news in an aching world – five years after we closed our doors, we’re releasing the eighth issue of Great Ocean Quarterly – the one that got away. The Lost Eighth, as we’re calling it, is a passion project, an itch we needed to scratch. We think you'll love what we have for you.

Here at Great Ocean Quarterly, we’ve passed the lock-down hours dusting off the hard drive that we unplugged back in 2015, when we were about to print our eighth issue. And we’ve re-discovered a wealth of sea stories: works by some of Australia’s favourite writers and artists, as well as international names. There’s a bird and a fish and a voyage, a tour under Sydney Harbour. There are poems and a song, and Greg Day’s Mislaid Books, Arturo, jellyfish and…Lego!

In fact, there’s so much wonderful material that we’re still trying to work out how to do this, but…

We want to bring you the long-awaited issue 2:3 of Great Ocean Quarterly, the volume we’re calling The Lost Eighth.

A one-off journal volume is a tricky thing, but we think we’ve found a way. And we’re asking for your support.

It’ll be a thumping-big 128 pages – more book than magazine - crammed with reading and thinking, and almost no ads. If we can find enough people to pre-order their copy, we can hit the print button and have GOQs pouring across the land like soldier crabs on a sandbank.

We want to showcase some brilliant ocean writing and art that didn’t get a run back then. (And eight is a more pleasing number. Who makes seven issues? Pah.)

Even better, for original subscribers, because you were supporting us when we closed the doors, we’re happy to send you an extra copy for free.

This release will be a break-even proposition. It’s not about the money (in truth, it never was). We want to honour some hard work from years ago, and bring something lovely into a riven world. There’s not much that can be guaranteed in print media, but this much stands: it’s the best issue we never made.

Jaws sincerely,

Jock Serong
Editor - Great Ocean Quarterly

____________

 Who is Great Ocean Quarterly?

Mick Sowry - Creative Director: Mick’s written and directed screenplays and documentaries including the multi-award winning Musica Surfica, alongside two major film and performance works with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. These productions, The Reef and The Reef Redux, have been performed worldwide. He’s a photographer, a surfer and the founder and spirit-penguin of Great Ocean Quarterly. 

Jock Serong - Editor: Plucked from the salted ranks of Australia’s surf writers, Jock edited GOQ from its launch to its untimely closure, and has gone on to publish five novels, to his mum’s ongoing acclaim. He lives, surfs, dives and fishes on Victoria’s west coast and sometimes in the Furneaux Islands of Bass Strait.

Mark Willett - Commercial Director: Marketeer, buccaneer, race sailor, surfer, and purveyor of the world’s finest tug boats. Mick said, “I have an idea” and Mark said, “Let’s do it!”

Here’s how it will work: 

• copies will be $40 each, postage included ($60AUD International Postage)
• our budget is $48,000 
• that’s based on 1200 copies sold at $40 each

This covers -

• printing
• paying our writers, photographers, and artists
• shipping 

This is not a re-opening of GOQ. It’s more like putting right something that was left unfinished. But if our Pozible campaign is wildly successful and over-subscribed, it may provoke a conversation. Any excess funds will go to Mick – that’s a story we’ll tell you along the way.

As it stands, this is a one-off proposition, for the love.

See these spreads below or have look at a sample here from the past seven issues.