Indie Editors Series: Tart Magazine
Credit: Annika Kafkaloudis.
“The food media landscape in Australia is dominated by hospitality coverage and family memoirs, and we wanted to make space for the stories in between. We want to know about Indigenous farming practices in Bidawal Country and an essay about the emotional importance of keeping sharehouse chickens through lockdown just as much as we want to know about creative chefs and culinary traditions passed down through generations.”
Something a little different for your plate in our latest interview as I catch up with Sasha Gattermayr and Sasha Aarons, the delectable duo behind Tart Magazine!
Tart is an annual print journal examining identity, history and culture through food. Featuring interviews, essays, journalism, poetry, playlists, photography, art and recipes by new and diverse storytellers, Tart aims to evoke everything that comes to mind when we gather around food.
We chat all about the presence of food media in Australia and its importance for storytelling and culture, the beautiful community of the small press scene in AusLit and the process behind their gorgeous publication.
Can you tell us a little more about yourselves and your journey into editing and writing so far?
Sasha Gattermayr (Editor & Co-founder): I studied English at university and worked at a bookshop with the sole intention of going into writing and editing as a career path. I literally couldn’t conceive of any other professional options that wouldn’t make me miserable! I freelanced and interned for a while after graduating to find the best entry into the industry, and got my first job as a fashion editor.
Sasha and I met as colleagues at The Design Files – me in editorial, and she in graphic design – and bonded over our love of food, artists and history. We conceived of Tart during the lockdowns when there seemed to be so many interesting people and communities popping up online; as there were few physical spaces people could communicate in, a lot of that sharing was magnified in public digital spaces. I guess this moment of hyper-visibility into people’s homes, lives, and creative pursuits (and Sasha and I had nothing to do outside of our day jobs) spurred us into making Tart. We both learned so much about digital publishing and audience behaviours from working with a team of formidable, creative women at TDF. We thought we could give it a go, applying all that knowledge to print. Hilariously, we started out as a ‘zine’, and then the first issue grew into 220 pages.
Sasha Aarons (Art Director & co-founder): I studied graphic design at RMIT and got a job as an in-house graphic designer at The Design Files as my first job after uni. I’m not a writer, but working at TDF was the first time I saw the way publishing integrated writing, design and photography from a production level. I’m passionate about land and environment stories, and this is what drew me into starting Tart. We wanted the form of the magazine to be multidisciplinary in the same way the content was, mirroring the way food culture intersects with environments, culture and identity. Working out a way to feature stories about land care and environmental practitioners doing amazing things in our food systems is the area of publishing and storytelling I’m most passionate about. Finding new ways to do that through design and art direction is where my expertise comes in.
And for those who may not have heard of Tart Magazine, please give us a little synopsis of the history of the journal and the type of writing Tart Magazine publishes.
Tart is a yearly print publication that celebrates new narratives around taste and food culture. We publish non-traditional forms of food writing: poetry, photography, essays, journalism and art alongside interviews, profiles and recipes.
The food media landscape in Australia is dominated by hospitality coverage and family memoirs, and we wanted to make space for the stories in between. We want to know about Indigenous farming practices in Bidawal Country and an essay about the emotional importance of keeping sharehouse chickens through lockdown just as much as we want to know about creative chefs and culinary traditions passed down through generations.
We want to foray into fiction too, but this is a future challenge!
I love the emphasis on food and how stories about food connect us on many different levels. Where did the idea for this focus come from, and why food specifically?
Food is where our friendship formed, so it was natural that conversations about different stories we’d seen or read evolved into a publication.
It also seemed like it was happening around the edges of a community we already knew; people our age and social circles were doing interesting and experimental things, and we wanted to capture that in print. We didn’t feel like mainstream food media was representing the variety and diversity of forms food storytelling takes; it didn’t represent how integral food is to our social, cultural, political, economic and artistic lives.
We clearly weren’t alone in thinking this, given the amount of independent, self-published food publications that started around the same time as ours: Colournary, Veraison, Swill Mag, and Diversity in Food Media to name a few.
Print was totally essential to the magazine. Food is so tactile, and we needed the texture, sentimentality and sensoriness of print to translate the depth of the stories.
What have been some of your biggest learnings so far as editors of Tart Magazine - have there been any great surprises?
A big surprise has been the amount of people that have been so enthusiastic about working with us!
We are a tiny publication with very small budgets, which means we can’t remunerate our contributors as handsomely as we would like to (and what they deserve to be paid!). But people can see what we are trying to do and that it’s a passion project, and they’re so keen and happy to contribute to something that isn’t a chain in the corporate machine and that their work will be respected and treated beautifully.
People really believe in it, from cover artists to photographers and writers, and that means we’re able to do great stuff. We give very long lead times and open, generous briefs for contributors, so maybe they see it as a space where they can try something new and be supported in only the way independent publications seem to do these days.
And as a bit of a follow-up, what are three tips you would pass on to others considering starting their own publication?
Create a social media plan before you launch your pages to the world. Have 6 or so posts lined up and an idea of what the posting schedule will look like. We have been really slack on our social media, and it’s the best, most efficient way of advertising for small businesses/publications trying to find a community. Most people find us on Instagram, and we get a lot of sales from the app, so being vigilant with it is so worth it!
Pay contributors. Sit down and work out a budget factoring in all your overheads, printing and paying contributors being the highest priorities. The best piece of advice we got when we were starting out was that even though we wouldn’t make any money ourselves, we get cultural capital as compensation for the time and work we put in. Which is so true! People who contribute don’t get that, despite a by-line and the gaslight-y myth of ‘exposure’ that so many contemporary media companies use to scam early career creatives into working for free. Independent self-publishing is a chance to work against the unjust mainstream publishing system, and doing that as early as you can makes things easier down the track. Paying someone also sets a professional standard from the get-go – it’s less embarrassing to chase someone who has missed a deadline if you know that you will be paying them eventually!
Look up art book fairs and pay for a stall. We have met nearly all our industry contacts and so many gorgeous readers at these events, this is the best part of the job! Engaging with like-minded, creative people, whether that be small publishers or interested readers and makers, this is why we do what we do!
The magazine has such an amazing aesthetic! Can you share a little more about your design process - is this something you do yourselves, or do you work with a designer?
Sasha Aarons is the art director of the publication and does all the design work herself. She taught herself how to lay out a whole magazine!
We had a very specific idea about what we wanted the magazine to look like and that there would be basically equal weight given to editorial and design. Publications like the Happy Reader and Lindsay were good inspirations for the clean design of the interiors.
It was a long process working out the exact font, logo and colour schemes we wanted to use, but once we got there it was totally worth the blood, sweat and tears. A big priority for us is working with local artists to realise a cover that speaks to the mood of the stories within the pages, creates a distinct visual look to the mag, and gestures towards the importance of art and design to the publication. People really respond to the artwork on the cover, and it makes each issue a design object in itself, as well as something to read and cook from.
The process involves a lot of mock-ups, a lot of emails and a lot of trial and error. It’s getting easier now we have done it a couple of times, but it’s still intensely detailed work. We are fortunate in that we worked together in a publishing capacity before this, so we were able to carry over a lot of the systems and methods from our training in our previous jobs, which made the process much easier. We weren’t starting totally from scratch.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts in general about the growing indie publication scene across Australian literature. What role do you think these play in fostering creativity, and are there any trends you've noticed across the scene, good or bad?
It’s so exciting to see the growing indie publishing scene in Australia! Especially after a decade and a half of doom and gloom about the media industry (starting with the GFC and continuing now with social media and AI), there are still so many passionate people dedicated to publishing new and interesting things.
The mainstream publishing industry should be looking to local indie publications to see where the real boundary-pushing ideas and people are because that’s where the industry leaders are!
And lastly, how can readers engage with Tart Magazine or any other creative projects you might be working on right now?
You can read more about Tart and buy a copy on our website, tartmagazine.net and follow us on Instagram @tart.magazine. There we post updates about new issues and upcoming events, sneak peeks of stories, and eating recommendations from locals around the world.
We will be at the Gertrude Contemporary and Perimeter Books Art Book Fair in Melbourne from September 2-3 this year if you would like to come and engage in person!
About Tart Magazine
Tart is an annual print journal examining identity, history and culture through food. It is a magazine of interviews, essays, fiction, journalism, poetry, playlists, photography, art and recipes by new and diverse storytellers. Its insides evoke everything that comes to mind when we are gathered around food: memories, emotions, sensations, occasions, rituals, habits.
Food is always a character, whether main or supporting, and Tart is filled with juicy stories of its many lives.
You can find Tart on Instagram, @tart.magazine and explore past issues at https://tartmagazine.net/
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
