Toronto theme featured in launch of New York literary journal Assembly

Editor Marek Denisiuk introduces Assembly

Speaking of Canadian magazines, I suppose it counts when a Toronto native launches a new literary journal in New York whose theme for the first issue is all things Toronto. According to a post on the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy, the editor and publisher of Assembly is Marek Denisiuk. Of his magazine, he says

“A lot of the literary journals seem like a broad inside joke between friends,” said Denisiuk, who grew up reading the “Paris Review” and now lives in Brooklyn. “I created this journal to give writers a chance to set the record straight about Toronto, to give it an identity, to reciprocate. There’s a fairly direct pipeline between Toronto and Brooklyn, and that’s part of it, too.”

 The article says that though each story in the magazine (which is 158 pages and sells for $9 a copy) does not relate directly to Toronto, the writers are primarily people who live in Toronto or New York. The launch was at Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.