New Lit on the Block: Folly Journal
Published on NewPages on February 12, 2025
New Lit on the Block: Folly Journal
Many would agree it’s an act of utter folly to start up a traditional print literary journal in this day and age, let alone a ‘high end, coffee table’ production, so the name, Folly Journal, certainly seems apt for this print-only literary publication featuring cultural commentary, creative writing, essays, poetry, and “carefully curated scandal.” Trying, as Founder and Editor in Chief Emily Makere Broadmore says, to be “lightish, ornamental, and intriguing. Each issue documents our cultural moment in all its messy, magnificent glory in an inviting and accessible magazine format.”
Published annually with a November release, the publication is generous at around one-hundred pages, “but it feels like something you can dip in and out of and take away on holiday to enjoy flicking through on the beach,” Broadmore assures. Currently available in print only, Folly Journal is stocked in selected independent bookstores, luxury hotels, and cultural institutions. It is also available for purchase online by single issue or subscription.
Beautiful Conversations
While folly can mean a ‘lack of good sense or foolishness,’ something costly and ornamental with no practical purpose, Broadmore takes a different tact on their name, “We are creating high art, not highbrow literature. It’s a beautiful product, full of beautiful, fantastic writing. It is an utter folly. However, we are creating something quite special. We saw a gap between high art and good fun stories, between cultural commentary and the conversations happening after gallery openings, and an opportunity to create a high-end publication that publishes writers from around the globe. We are more of a coffee table book or magazine than a literary journal. People actually read us, gift us, and take us on holiday. What other literary journal is stocked in the rooms of luxury hotels?”
Behind the scenes, Broadmore [pictured] is supported by a managing editor and an assistant editor, with submissions opening mid-January through to late May using the Submittable platform. “All submissions are reviewed by our editorial and reading team,” Broadmore explains, “with equal parts rigorous standards and questionable intentions. We believe in swift responses because suspense should be saved for the stories themselves.” Response time for those whose work won’t be longlisted is a matter of weeks, while longlisted writers are whittled down in the final month of the reading period.”
Broadmore adds, “While we don’t provide detailed feedback, we do work closely to support writers whose stories we believe in, wrapping editing support around them. Many writers we work with will become published in a later issue. We also offer paid feedback and other support that submitters can choose.”
To celebrate the publication’s annual launch, Folly Journal hosts an all-night rave in Wellington City, New Zealand. Apparently a not-to-be-missed event, as Broadmore shares, “Contributors have been known to fly in for the party!”
Encapsulating Truths for Readers
For readers taking a stroll through an issue of Folly Journal, Broadmore promises, “A Folly story will surprise you, it will be a bit sexy or provocative. But most importantly it tells the truth and encapsulates New Zealand, and the world, at this exact moment in time. We have been described as ‘strange’ by ReadingRoom’s Steve Braunias, in the same review that he said we contained some of the best writing he had read all year.
“Folly Journal publishes international award-winning writers alongside newbies who have never written anything, let alone been published, while chronicling what happened to a top broadcasters underpants after a one night stand twenty years ago. We are part literary journal, part Victorian gossip rag, created by a group of New Zealanders who drink too much absinthe.
“Last year’s short story from Berlin-based New Zealander George Titheridge had reviewer Steve Braunias’s spluttering into his coffee after the protagonist had eight orgasms with her love interest. This year everyone has been intrigued by the dark romance of New Yorker Melissa de Costa Brown, who took out the Folly Prize. Equally, the 2024 issue documented the pre-social media dating escapades of journalist Emma Gilkison and NZ broadcaster Guyon Espiner in a strange account of their friendship twenty years ago.”
Up From Here
Folly Journal has already established a record, as Broadmore notes, “We sell more copies of Folly than any other literary journal we know of overseas, based on conversations we have had with editors. We send a lot offshore, so are currently looking for suitable international distribution channels and bookstores to save our readers postage fees from New Zealand. We are also growing the Folly Social Club, developing our writers’ community, and continuing to document New Zealand’s cultural moment with equal parts sophistication and scandal.
And just how does it feel to sell out faster than any other literary journal in New Zealand? “Like vindication,” Broadmore asserts, “wrapped in victory wrapped in very good trouble and a lot of absinthe.”
For a publication as bold and beautiful as Folly Journal, such attitudes of achievement seem appropriate, though Broadmore hopes readers find their own sense of being wrapped in a literary journal that takes the work seriously without taking itself seriously, with the occasional – or more frequent – astonishment: “I can’t believe they published that story about [REDACTED].”
“Print isn’t dead;” Broadmore concludes, sharing the greatest lesson learned in creating Folly Journal, “it was just waiting for the right kind of trouble. Also, breast milk cocktails at launch parties create more cultural discourse than expected.”
