Interview: Nathan Alan Schwartz, Founder of FIVE:2:ONE Magazine

A Home for "Weird Babies"

By The Editors

Craving some literature and art that is unconventional? Have some sillier or weirder pieces that can't find a home? Then FIVE:2:ONE, a literary experience founded by Nathan Alan Schwartz, may have a home for your "weird baby". Both founding editor Christine Sloan Stoddard as well as executive editor Gretchen Gales have both had work in the experimental literary magazine.

So to celebrate Issue 21, their latest release, we wanted to find out more behind the magazine that breaks the rules with great success. Who knows? The next "weird baby" they adopt could be from your own collection. Read on to discover more about Schwartz's vision for the publication: 

Where did you get the name FIVE:2:ONE and how does it tie into your greater mission to highlight the "transgressive, progressive, and experimental"?
 
To tell you the truth, the name FIVE:2:ONE has almost nothing to do with our mission. Mostly the name is meaningless and our mission statement is a very loose and ever-changing mission statement so the name is just a name. But, we like it that way.
 
#thesideshow is the daily dose of "weird babies" we can all get behind. About how many writers have you been able to feature since its birth?
 
We’ve been doing #thesideshow every day since 2015, so… 1,460? 
 
Do you have any plans to expand the current projects that are part of FIVE:2:ONE? If so, what are you hoping to bring to the table? 
 
We are actually hoping to expand our LitStyle section by adding more articles about music, movies, books, lifestyle, and culture online and in print. By doing this, we’re hoping to highlight the strange and weird in all aspects but also keep our foot in the “normie” poppy fields.   
 
What do you wish writers and artists would know before submitting their work? 
 
We like works of art that are innovative. We love experiments,even if they aren’t good experiments. We love when we get artist or writer statements about why they did what they did. Our mission statement is very lose so we like "normies" too, but not run of the mill "normies".  
 
What does experimental literature bring to the  writing field as a whole? 
 
Experimental Lit is like that  danger seeking lover that we adore because they are danger seeking. I think that experimental lit never runs out of techniques and new ways to think. It teaches folks to think outside the norm and to fuck around with ideas...even if its just for fun.

Anything else you would like to add?

We are literally always open for subs so send subs any time!  


See Christine and Gretchen's work in FIVE:2:ONE below...

Christine:
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FIVE:2:ONE Issue 17

​Gretchen:
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#thesideshow: "The Citrus Leaf Tree"

FIVE:2:ONE Issue 21

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​Purchase previous issues on their website or on Amazon:
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