Sienna Bentley

Happy launch day to the second print issue!

I started bite mag back in 2023 to celebrate creativity in all its forms. It was just meant to be digital, but I always loved the idea of print and understood the importance of being able to keep it alive.

In March last year, Ray and I designed and published the first print edition, and today marks the birth of the second.

It’s a process that takes more than six months, from the call for submissions and editing contributions to laying out and printing. This year, for the second print, I worked while dealing with personal challenges and health problems, upheaval and uncertainty, and I wasn’t sure if it would ever get done. If you’ve been around for a while, you might recall that it was getting a bit touch and go… I was stressed…

The wild issue features work from more than 10 creatives – seasoned bite mag contributors and brand-new faces – spanning poetry, photography and illustration, essays, interviews and puzzles. I just wanted to express my gratitude and say thank you to everyone who submitted work for the print, we’ve got such a range of artistic and insightful pieces and the talent is astounding!

Feeling proud of myself doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m working on it. I feel proud when I hold the wild issue in my hands and I am proud of everyone who got involved and helped me turn it into something real – something that has never existed before.

While I’m riding the cringe-mobile, here’s an excerpt from the editor’s note (yours truly):

The theme for the second issue is wild. As children, we’re free, we run on instinct. We are passionate and bold. We’re messy, we get stuck in. We use our grubby little hands to make, build, create. As we age, we become burdened by the pressures of perfection, afraid to be bold and brave enough to bare our souls and put forward our creations to be perceived and judged. Creating becomes scary. Creating requires bravery. Being brave is often messy.

Making this second issue has actually been more challenging than the first. The first time around is when you make mistakes because you simply don’t know what you’re doing. Of course, you don’t realise they’re mistakes until later. The second time, you’ve learned. This time, it should be easy to make something perfect because you know how to fix what went wrong – right? Yeah… no.

I think even (perhaps especially) for artists it’s incredibly challenging to face the fact that you don’t know how things are going to pan out, and you can’t guarantee perfection. There’s power in relinquishing control and letting your inner child play.

This post was first seen on LinkedIn. Yes, I’m that cringe and embarrassing.