stachemagazineonline:

Confession: I buy magazines because of the pictures and the layout. Having no formal educational background in graphic design, layout and photography, I had to rely on magazines and observe how they are done. I started feeling bad about my habit when I realized how hard our writers work. They had to research, bulk up their range of adjectives and smoothen vocabulary once in a while and that takes more effort than your average photowalk. However, what I lack in writing is balanced by my desire to read. It goes to an extent where I can’t help but read every shampoo bottle while taking my morning shower. I now fully understand that even those simple descriptive words on my shampoo bottle takes a lot of work to write.

This issue was put together to celebrate literature as an art form in many formats. Of course, there is no better person to be on our cover but spoken word artist (not to mention our first international cover), Shane Koyczan. This by far is the biggest leap we’ve made ever since our concepcion and we couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished. We also have Andrea Gibson and Tyler Knott Gregson in this issue as well as other artists such as an interview with our new Art Director, Gab Bustos.

A fresh segment was also created to add more write-ups in our magazine which is creatively-named Columns (witty, I know). There are quite a number of articles inside from a wide range of topics like Why You Should Stop Reading John Green and How To Win American Idol.

Making a literary issue is quite a big risk for us but we know it’s going to be worth it. We need to see something different once in a while just to keep you interested and to, possibly, change the game. I think that writers are underrated and underpaid (according to many complaints on my Twitter feed) so this issue goes out to them. And before I forget, kudos to our Associate Editor, Carl Millan and our Senior Photographer, Pat Nabong for suggesting this theme.

Cover illustration by Gerd Perez

Click to read our latest issue.

Writers who deserve your attention, relevant notions in the form of articles, and a little bit of everything; this is Stache’s June 2012 issue.