Our editorial brief
The first issue has
to earn the second.
A magazine begins with a question worth staying with.
Who benefits? Who pays? What does the official version leave out?
And what happens to the people who have to live inside the answer?
That is the territory of Scanlan’s: reporting with a sense of place, criticism with an argument, and conversations that keep going when the prepared remarks run out.
We want writing that notices things. The revealing detail. The contradiction in the public record. The joke that tells the truth more efficiently than the speech. A point of view is welcome. It still has to answer to the evidence.
The first obligation is to the work, and then to the reader’s time.
For the first issue, the job is small enough to finish and serious enough to matter: a reported feature, a cultural essay, and a conversation. Each has to pass through editing, verification, and a final read before it appears here.
This site is the starting point. No issue has been published yet. Our newsletter and public contact channels will open with the first issue.
The inspiration
Scanlan’s Monthly was planned in 1969 and published in 1970–71. Its reporting, cultural reach, and visual audacity are the historical starting point for this new magazine.
We take from that example an appetite for difficult questions, a substantial role for illustration, and confidence that a magazine can be serious without sounding sedated.
This is a new independent publication. We do not claim affiliation with the original publishers or ownership of the historical magazine’s archive. The design and artwork on this site are original.
Historical references: the first cover in the People’s Graphic Design Archive and the publisher’s 1969 SEC notice.
Masthead
Editor and publisher
Daniel O' Bailey
Contributors and image credits will accompany the work they make. The publication schedule will be announced with the first issue.
Read our editorial standards or our contributor information.
Privacy & contact
There is no signup form, payment service, or audience analytics on this site at present. Our hosting provider may keep routine server access logs to operate and secure the website.
Newsletter signup, editorial contact, and a corrections contact will be published when the first issue opens. Submissions are not currently open.
Site information updated October 29, 2026.