West Coast Magazine

West Coast Magazine (1987–1998). was a three times a year Scottish literary publication consisting of poetry, short fiction, articles, essays and reviews. Founding editors were Gordon Giles, Kenny MacKenzie and Joe Murray. The proof issue appeared in October 1987 and contained some articles and poems that did not appear in official issues. West Coast Magazine (WCM) was initially funded by East Glasgow Gear Project and Glasgow City Council; ultimately funded by the Scottish Arts Council.

WCM was probably the first Scottish literary magazine fully produced pre-press in-house to a professional standard, and was the forerunner, in this sense, for many similar Scottish literary publications that came after it. The main aim of West Coast was to help promote new writers and new writing in Scotland, though it did not exclusively publish Scottish writers or writers resident in Scotland – writers from all over the world contributed to its content. Established writers such as Alasdair Gray^[1] (short fiction and poetry), Agnes Owens (short fiction and poetry), Janice Galloway (short fiction),^[2] Freddie Anderson, (articles and poetry), Alison Prince (poetry),^[3] Dominic Behan (poetry),^[4] James Kelman (interview and article),^[5] Kenneth White (poetry, articles), all of whom also provided great encouragement to the project. New writers who were beginning to produce works of note were featured, such as: Des Dillon (short fiction and poetry),^[6] Brian Whittingham^[7] (poetry), Jim Ferguson^[8] (short fiction and poetry), Irvine Welsh (short fiction)^[9] and Graham Fulton (poetry),^[10] and Andrew M Forster among others.

WCM Production Team: John Cunningham (Proof-reader, Distribution and Reviewer), Jan Dalton (Administration, Proof-reader and Reviewer), Maud Devine (Proof-reader and Distribution), Gordon Giles (Typesetting, Layout and Reviewer), Kenny MacKenzie (Typesetting, Layout and Reviewer), Alan Mason (Design), Joe Murray (Typesetting, Layout and Reviewer), Tam O'Hara (Word Processing), Ellen Shearer (Word Processing).

WCM Editorial Staff: due to work commitments Joe Murray left the magazine after helping to complete Issue Three but returned after the publication of Issue Four. Gordon Giles left during production of Issue Six to pursue a career in Community Education; from Issue Nine till Issue Thirteen an editorial board chose most of the work for the magazine. This group consisted of Margaret Fulton Cook editor and for two years,during this time John Cunningham, Graham Fulton, Ronnie Smith and Brian Whittingham were the editorial board with Joe Murray as managing editor. From Issue Fourteen through 28 when West Coast Magazine ended, Joe Murray was managing editor and Brian Whittingham editor.

WCM also produced many writers' events such as readings and talks – mainly in pubs and other public places. WCM produced almost all of the literary events for Glasgow's City of Culture festival in 1990.

All of the poetry and poetry reviews published in West Coast Magazine can be found on the Scottish Poetry Library's website^[11]

In 1991 Media Bridge Limited (MB ltd.) was formed by Joe Murray and Kenny MacKenzie, and West Coast Magazine became an imprint of that company. Media Bridge created the imprints: Taranis Books for fiction and Sirona Press for poetry. Sirona Press was never used for publishing and consequently all books were published under the Taranis imprint. MB ltd.'s first six books were produced by Joe Murray; while the company was successfully managed by Kenny MacKenzie. Joe Murray left in 1992 to form the publishing design company, EM-DEE Productions, and WCM became an imprint of that company. under the guidance of Kenny MacKenzie Taranis Books went on to publish around two-dozen books before being put to sleep in 2000. After a dispute over Arts Council funding, WCM published the final double issue (27–28) in 1998.

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