There was no reason to hold back. Now, no longer. I always thought that I would be rejected by everyone as soon as I faced the world, and instead the truth is that Tian Min, commonly known as Tim, is not so interesting that anyone will give a shit about me messing up.

So, time to be messier. From now on, I will write openly and spend my days sharing my thoughts more often. I have a lot to say, not all of it coherent. Writing is the link between my favorite pastime (thought) and my greatest aspiration (art).

Adapted from the September 2022 issue.

Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ was born on an August trip to Muskoka (four hours each way, ft. an empty tank scare). Our party of three arrived past noon at Windermere House, where a culinary student friend was a live-in cook. He treated us to bruschetta, cold pea soup, burgers, sandwiches, and cake. I complimented the food, but not too much, as Neil was not in the kitchen and I wished not to suggest that he was unnecessary. On the contrary: his steak from months ago, paired with a red wine and savored with good company around a wooden table in a home dining room, was the stuff of dreams, and cost not a fraction of a restaurant’s price.

Ahem. Lunch at Windermere House in Muskoka. Feeling clever, I took with me that week’s The New Yorker, the summer’s The Paris Review, a moleskin pocketbook, and an autograph album (our agreeable waiter Meghan signed it with her first pet’s name, her mother’s maiden name, and her childhood address). Nothing beats flaunting how learnèd and quirky I am. “So smart and cool,” said the wealthy patrons as they imagined me taking their daughters as concubines. Untempted by delicious dowries, sparing a thought for the rabble living in the dark, I wept. How anyone lived ignorant of the printed word of their intellectual betters in NYC, how they went about without jotting two lines of iambic pentameter an hour (feminine ending, i.e. hendecasyllable), I knew not. 

Let there be light. In Chinese, to be civilized is to be literate — text 文 light 明. In two columns of EB Garamond and Nunito, We bestow civilization to my hometown of Waterloo. The focus of this magazine is writing quality, with special weight on brevity and parsimony. Anything from abstracts to rants fits the bill.

First Saturday every month, til we give up. Enjoy it while it lasts. Your help in this crusade is necessary to the good of mankind (and one mean fella, yours truly). 

Write to us, and pass this site around.

written by
Solomon Hawthorn

A new beginning on an inauspicious day. This is Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ’s establishment as a free online litzine, in addition to being a free print litzine.

We are based in a fictional Waterloo, Ontario. Decide what that means.

written by
Gale Jones