Lumpen Issue 1

Description

Lumpen: A Journal of Poor and Working Class writing is exactly what it sounds like. First hand accounts of lives on the rock face of austerity, critical assessments of the state of the left, the UK, and the international. Touching on the intersections of race, gender, mental and physical health. Discussions of violence, sex, identity, family, exclusion, education and loss.

The publishing world is for the economically secure, the ones who can have the family and friends in the industry, the ones who have the time and resources to take months off without earning any cash, the ones who can afford to go on as many writing retreats as they like. It’s basically well middle class. Many of our writers are working minimum wage jobs 40 plus hours a week, often with other commitments on top of that from family to social justice work. Many of our writers were marginalised from education, told that they were to stupid or ignorant to share their ideas and analysis of the world. Lumpen thinks differently, and part of thinking differently is by finding ways to offer some financial solidarity with those writers.

At Lumpen we’re aiming to be able to pay our poor and working class writers as much as we can for their craft. And we want to give them a space to try out new styles and find the voices that match their ideas.