By the looks of it, not much has changed for The White Review. This new edition, like its predecessors, features the customary blend of interviews, fiction, essays, poetry and artwork, and gives pride of place to talented young writers such as Jack Cox, whose story ‘The Fishermen’ opens the issue. Subscribers will also notice that we have stuck to our tradition of stretching the calendrical boundaries of the quarterly publishing cycle.

So what is new? A sea change for The White Review was the obtainment of charitable status late this summer. As a registered charity, we aim to promote ‘the arts and literature for the benefit of the public by the publication of an arts and literary journal and the organisation of artistic and literary events specialising in artistically or educationally meritorious works of new or emerging artists and writers’.
What this means, in effect, is that we are eligible for gift-aid on all donations. We would also like to expand our charitable board of Trustees — currently a triumvirate, including both editors – in the hope that The White Review can continue to flourish. In the meantime, as we figure out how to reclaim gift-aid (these things do not come easily to us), we have stepped tentatively into the realm of advertising as a way of part-funding our production costs. We are pleased to have secured the support of a small number of similarly-minded cultural organisations such as the Wellcome Trust in this endeavour.

The last – and most exciting – development, is the launch of a short story prize, imaginatively named The White Review Short Story Prize. Funded by a generous £2,500 grant from the Jerwood Charitable foundation, all of which will be awarded to the winner, the prize is open to submissions until 1 March 2013. This competition, to be judged by writer Deborah Levy, editor Alex Bowler and literary agent Karolina Sutton, will reward the best story submitted to The White Review by an unpublished writer residing in Great Britain or Ireland (details here). Meanwhile, there is an issue to read. As ever, we hope it inspires, provokes, angers. Any reaction is a gratifying one.