About
Four issues a year, made by five people and a great many telephone calls
We started in 2019 with twelve stapled pages about a culvert in Ardmouth that had been blocked for a decade while three public bodies wrote to each other about whose it was. Nine hundred people read it. The subject has not run out since. We report on rivers, ports, floods, swimming and the law of the bank, from an office above a chandlery, and we go to the water before we write about it.
Who makes it
Five people, two of them part time
Ivo Marchant
Editor
Founded the magazine in 2019 after fourteen years on a local paper that closed. Edits every piece and answers most of the post.
Delia Rooke
Reporter, law and water
Covers abstraction, liability and the riparian cases nobody else sits through. Has read the Nevel file twice.
Nell Ardwick
Criticism
Writes about books, films and the language people reach for when they get into cold water.
Sam Beare
Audio edition
Records, cuts and presents the fortnightly edition, usually standing somewhere wet with a windshield on.
How we got here
Seven years, twelve issues
2019
Twelve stapled pages
Ardmouth
A single piece about a blocked culvert, printed at a copy shop and left in four cafes. Nine hundred people read it.
2020
First proper issue
Issue 1, Spring Tide
Sixty-four pages, three hundred subscribers, and an editor who was also the distributor.
2022
The magazine goes quarterly
Four issues a year
A schedule we have not missed since, including the winter the printer flooded.
2023
The audio edition begins
Fortnightly
One piece read aloud and then argued about, recorded near the water wherever that is possible.
2024
Advertising dropped
Reader funded in full
The last four advertisers were let go over one issue. Subscriptions covered it within eight months.
2026
Issue Twelve
Slack Water
Five people, a weekly piece online, and an archive that stays open.
How it works
Money, method, and what we will not print
How is it paid for?
Subscriptions, and nothing else. A year is four issues in the post and everything online. From 00 a year, and a lower rate for anybody who asks for it, no questions and no means test.
Do you take advertising?
No, and we have not since 2024. We do not run sponsored pieces, native advertising, affiliate links or paid listings, and we do not accept travel, accommodation or equipment from anybody we might write about.
What will you not publish?
Anything we have not been to. Anything sourced entirely from a press release. Property and tourism pieces dressed as reporting. Photographs of people swimming who did not know they were being photographed. And an opinion piece about cold water immersion, ever again.
Do you pay contributors?
Yes, on acceptance, at a single rate that is printed in every issue. We do not commission on spec and we pay a kill fee in full when a piece is dropped for reasons that are ours.
How do you handle corrections?
They go at the front of the next issue and at the top of the piece online, in full, with what was wrong and how it got there. The online piece is never quietly edited.
Can I read the archive without subscribing?
Yes. Everything we have published stays online and stays free. The subscription pays for the next issue, not for access to the last one.
A year is four issues and everything online
From 00 a year, less if you ask. Cancel by writing one line to us.