SWERVE is a magazine for new writing and visual art based in County Cork in the Republic of Ireland. Our aim is to publish emerging writers and artists alongside more established names. We welcome works in translation and artist/writer collaborations. The Swerve Arts Residency will start in 2023 when an artist or writer will be invited to live and work for one month at the SWERVE HQ in Skibbereen.

Why SWERVE?

Firstly, in homage to Verve Magazine, a literary journal that was published in France in the 1930s. Swerve’s designer, Mich Maroney, owns a copy of the last issue of Verve to be published in 1940, at the beginning of WW2, just before the fall of Paris. That issue of Verve was a celebration of French art and literature in the face of barbarism. It is a treasured possession and was the inspiration for the format for our magazine that seeks to give equal weight to the word and the visual image. It is a savage irony that Swerve is being launched as we watch in disbelief whilst Europe is once again threatened by totalitarianism and war.

We feel that the arts are crucial in countering this spirit of destruction and nationalistic inward-looking. It is our aim to publish new and emerging writing but another, equally important, ambition is to publish works in translation. It seems essential that the arts should strive to build bridges, foster understanding and transcend boundaries, and it is our intention that future issues of Swerve will contribute to this ethos. We hope to achieve it by emphasizing translated works by international writers and, in conjunction with powerful visual images, create an impactful experience for our readers.

Secondly, during lockdown, our lives radically changed direction. A great silence descended in the streets of our towns, cities and villages. We began to question and to ask ourselves what was essential to life, and it became very clear that community, creativity and a shared culture are core to any meaningful existence. Swerve grew out of this extraordinary situation when it was brought home to us how the arts can be a profound source of consolation in times of trauma. Our first issue is an anthology of the voices that came out of that great silence and of the community of writers that grew against all the odds in that strange time of fear and isolation.