About The Mortar

All around the world, small, independent publishers are producing carefully crafted stories, essays, and interviews that help readers to slow down and see the world from a fresh perspective. Each week, The Mortar chooses two of those stories and emails them to subscribers, giving a quick, convenient introduction to a publication they might not otherwise have seen.The Mortar is produced by Stack, the independent magazine club. Established in 2008, Stack delivers a different print magazine to its subscribers every month – they never know what they’re going to get next, but they do know it will be a beautiful, intelligent magazine they probably wouldn’t otherwise have come across. Running Stack means that we read a LOT of magazines, but we only get to share 12 of them each year. The Mortar is our opportunity to go broader, representing a much wider range of magazines, and pushing out beyond print.

More than magazines

While The Mortar shares stories from lots of small magazines, it also draws from online publications, worker-owned journalism organisations, and newsletters. We want to promote great, insightful, funny, and affecting writing, wherever it’s from.

And each story we share on The Mortar is also accompanied by an original illustration, created by a young artist. Art director Holly Catford works with lots of new illustrators, and she’s seen the problem first-hand of art budgets shrinking and editorial opportunities drying up. So she’s turning to the best of those young artists to commission graphics that help the stories stand out in your inbox.At launch we’re paying the illustrators just a token fee, but we want to pay a proper rate as soon as possible. And all the writers are providing their stories for free because they want The Mortar to exist, but they should also be paid for their work. So if you can afford it, please sign up to pay £5 per month to support this new project. You’ll be paying us so that we can pay them, and so we can share more great writing and artwork from independents around the world.