No. 14: The second draft
An issue about the pass after the first one: a woodworker's hidden joints, a baker's slow clock, a style sheet that ended an argument, and a year of kept drafts, counted.
I.Contents
In the order they run in print. Page numbers are for the printed copy.
Every piece has an audio edition read by its writer.
From the editor
- p. 4
Essays
- p. 8
- p. 34
- p. 58
Interviews
- p. 74
Notebook
- p. 98
II.Why we gave an issue to the second draft
A note from the editor.
When we planned this issue in the spring, its working title was Finishing. Then every pitch we liked turned out to be about something else: the joint a furniture maker cuts on the back of a drawer, the hours a baker spends waiting on a jar, the folder of drafts one of our editors kept for a year.The title changed in June, after the third pitch in a week used the words "second draft" without being asked.
They were all about the middle of the work, the pass after the first one, where most of the quality gets made. That's what this issue is about. Iris Calder counts what survives from draft to draft. Ezra Lindqvist argues that the people who keep things running practice a craft with its own masters. Wren Mallory publishes the style sheet that ended our arguments about commas.
We also changed something about how we make the magazine. Every piece in No. 14 went through a read-aloud pass with its editor, on the phone, before it went to the printer. It added a week. We think you'll hear it.The longest call was two hours and ten minutes, for the interview on page 74.
III.Colophon
Who made No. 14, and how.
- Editor
- Meg Ostrander
- Deputy editor
- Tomas Reyes-Hale
- Contributors
- Iris Calder, Ben Okoro, Hana Sato-Whitley, Ezra Lindqvist, Wren Mallory; diagrams by Priya Raman
- Pages
- 112, uncoated stock, sewn binding
- Printed by
- A family press in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in a run of 2,400
- Typefaces
- Newsreader for text and headlines, Hanken Grotesk for everything else
IV.Earlier this year
The three issues before this one, all still in print.
Have No. 14 mailed to you
A Print subscription brings this issue and the next three to your door.
$140 a year with US shipping. Single copies are $28 at the shops.