less journal - Julie Johnstone

less
[series 2 | 2022-]

Introducing the next three issues in the second series of less.

Each issue of less is devoted to a single new work by one poet or artist and is published in an edition of 150. The second series of less continues the minimalist preoccupations of the first series.

The fourth set of three issues are published in May 2024. They feature work by Astra Papachristodoulou, Joe Devlin, and J R Carpenter.
Issues of less cost £5 each
Issues 10-12 are available at a special group price of £12. PURCHASE
(They can be purchased separately below.)
**Special 2024 offer to catch up with the series: all previous issues (1-9) published so far £35 PURCHASE
And see also published in May 2024: sounding out by nicky melville £5 purchase

The third set of three issues were published in April 2023. They featured work by Leonard McDermid, Imi Maufe, and Chris McCabe.
Issues of less cost £5 each
Issues 7-9 are available at a special group price of £12. PURCHASE
(They can be purchased separately below.)

The second three issues (4-6) were published together in September 2022. They featured work by Lila Matsumoto, Danni Storm, and Imogen Reid.
Issues of less cost £5 each.
Issues 4-6 are available at a special group price of £12. PURCHASE
(They can be purchased separately below.)

The first three issues (1-3) were published together as a group in March 2022 and featured Greg Thomas, Petra Schulze-Wollgast, and derek beaulieu.
Issues of less cost £5 each.
Issues 1-3 are also still available at a special group price of £12. PURCHASE
(They can be purchased separately below.)

Information about the first series of less can be found near the bottom of the page.

Less #12 | J R Carpenter

J. R. Carpenter is an artist, writer, and researcher working across performance, print, and digital media. Her digital poem The Gathering Cloud won the New Media Writing Prize 2016. Her print collection An Ocean of Static was highly commended by the Forward Prizes 2018. This is a Picture of Wind was listed in The Guardian’s best poetry books of 2020. Her most recent collection The Pleasure of the Coast is published by Pamenar Press. She is a Lecturer in Performance Writing at University of Leeds.
luckysoap.com

Less #11 | Joe Devlin

Joe Devlin’s Nuts & Bolts (N&B) is an independent publishers based in North Manchester producing books that, in some way, reference the physicality of the printed object, utilising the book, and the language often associated to describe/define them, as triggers for new publications. Materiality is a source of content, from faded covers to altered endpapers, with a focus on creating publications that employ marginalia, dog ears, ephemera found in books, graffitied pages, re-appropriated content, and other additions.
nutsandboltspublishing.com

Less #10 | Astra Papachristodoulou

Please send us images of your planted and growing poems. @essencepress @HeyAstranaut

Astra Papachristodoulou holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey. Her practice-based doctoral project explored sculptural poetics as a revolutionary act in the context of the Anthropocene. She is the author of several books including Stargazing and Selected Variations for Bees (both Guillemot Press). She is also the founder of Poem Atlas, and has curated several visual poetry exhibitions across the UK. She won the Pebeo Mixed Media Art Prize in 2016, and her visual poetry work has been showcased at venues such as the National Poetry Library, Kew Gardens and Christie’s, London.
www.astranaut.co.uk

Less #9 | Chris McCabe

Chris McCabe’s work spans artforms and genres including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama and visual art. He is the author of five collections of poetry and co-editor of The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (Hayward, 2015). @mccabio1977

Less #8 | Imi Maufe

Imi Maufe is a British visual artist based in Bergen, Norway. Maufe works with artist books, text, installations, interactions and performance, often documenting journeys and everyday experiences. In 2013 Maufe established the artist collective – Codex Polaris, which promotes and curates possibilities for artists who work with books in Norway and the Nordic Countries. www.imimaufe.com

Less #7 | Leonard McDermid

Leonard McDermid was a teacher for many years, mainly in the Scottish Borders, and undertook two appointments as artist to The Marine Society, working on merchant vessels. He covered over fifty thousand nautical miles world-wide, including work on a troopship ferrying soldiers across the South Atlantic and on a tanker in the Arabian Gulf during the ‘Tanker War’. Letterpress printing is a significant facet of Leonard’s artistic output and he established the Stichill Marigold Press in 1990. Under this imprint he has produced a wide array of handmade pamphlets. One such, And for that minute, was awarded the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award in 2010, and another, Landway, won the final iteration of that prize in 2018. stichillmarigoldpress.com

Less #6 | Imogen Reid

Imogen Reid is an artist and writer with an interest in developing non-conventional forms of readability. Her work has been published by Osmosis Press, To Call, 3AM etc. She has pamphlets with Gordian Projects, Nightjar Press, Timglaset, & Overground Underground.

Less #5 | Danni Storm

Danni Storm is a visual poet and musician living and working in Copenhagen. Work by Danni Storm may be found online here.

Speechless is a visual poem typewritten on a Brother Deluxe typewriter.

Less #4 | Lila Matsumoto

Lila Matsumoto lives in Nottingham. Her poetry publications include Twin Pipes Sprout Water (Prototype) and Urn & Drum (Shearsman). She plays in the bands Food People and Cloth.

Light Hazzles is a reservoir in Upper Calder Valley in West Yorkshire.

Less #3 | derek beaulieu

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel, was published by France’s Jean Boîte Editions, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, is forthcoming from Coach House Books. Beaulieu has exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States, and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Derek Beaulieu is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Banff’s 2022-2024 Poet Laureate.
www.derekbeaulieu.ca

Less #2 | Petra Schulze-Wollgast

psw is a Germany-based artistic discoverer in outdated printmaking techniques. She creates abstract typographics on typewriters and with dry transfer letters and duplicates her work with mimeographs – making books from her work. She is also the creator of the ongoing mimeo printed magazine ToCall and TYPEWRITTEN artists’ books serial.
www.psw.gallery

Less #1 | Greg Thomas

Greg Thomas is a poet, maker of small objects, and art critic based in Glasgow. Recent and forthcoming publications include Cloud Cover (Essence, 2018), from im and not this (SPAM, 2021), and particulates (Timglaset, 2022). A collection of candle poems is forthcoming from Poem Atlas in late 2022.
www.gregthomas.online

Moiré alludes both to effects achieved in textile production through certain calendering and weaving techniques, and to the history of concrete poetry, in which overlaid text creates effects of motion and dazzle. Poets known for this effect include Jiří Valoch, Bob Cobbing, and Paula Claire who pioneered the use of acetate, manouevred over a sheet of paper, to generate reader-activated moiré effects.

about series 2

The second series of less is conceived as a serial publication; each item in the series can vary in form, unlike the first series which had a consistent design applied across all issues. As editor, Julie Johnstone works closely with the contributing poets and artists to find a form that develops out of the content or concept of the piece.

less will be the primary way that Essence Press works with poets and artists for the foreseeable future. Submissions and ideas are welcome, although the press usually approaches contributors directly. The aim is to publish three issues two to three times a year, although less is an occasional rather than regular serial publication series.

less
[series 1 | 2009-2012]

The first series of less was a minimalist, and minimal journal exploring the notion of less. Each issue consisted of a single piece, either new or a reprinted work. less was conceived as an anthology issued in individual parts, each part existing in isolation for contemplation, and yet part of a project that loosely gathered under the conceptual idea of ‘less’.

less was edited by Julie Johnstone and published 2009-2012, in a hand-bound limited edition.

Each issue is £4.