Announcing Elementary Penguin

I'm delighted to announce the upcoming launch of Elementary Penguin, a new quarterly PDF journal devoted to the pleasures of language.

Whether that means exploring the history of a word, composing a lipogram, creating nonsense literature, crafting alliterative verse, constructing a word puzzle, or taking language apart to see what else it can do, Elementary Penguin will be a home for that spirit of playful curiosity.

Why This Journal?

I've often felt that several communities who have plenty to say to each other rarely meet.

There are formal poets fascinated by metre, structure, and sound. There are avant-garde writers pushing language beyond its conventional limits. There are crossword setters and solvers, palindromists, anagrammatists, etymologists, puzzle makers, and countless other explorers in the world of words...

Elementary Penguin aims to bring these communities together.

If you love words — not just for what they say, but for what they are — welcome to Elementary Penguin.

What You'll Find

Each issue will present an eclectic mix of things to read, think about, solve, and enjoy, including:

essays on linguistic curiosities;

formal and experimental poetry;

constraint-based writing;

nonsense literature;

original language puzzles;

and other pieces of verbal mischief.

A discussion of Old English alliterative verse might sit alongside a set of uncanny anagrams, a Joycean language experiment alongside a cryptic crossword, a nonsense poem alongside an article on etymology...

If it invites people to look at language differently — or simply to enjoy it — it belongs here.

A Community Journal

Elementary Penguin will be published quarterly as a free PDF, from Spring 2027.

Nobody involved is being paid, including the editor. This is a labour of love whose purpose is to create a meeting place for those fascinated by language.

Since the focus is on community over profit, previously published work will be welcome. If you've written an article, poem, puzzle, or other piece that deserves a wider audience among fellow word-lovers, I'd be delighted to consider it.

Submissions

In the first instance, submissions will be sought by solicitation. However, a general submissions window shouldn’t be far away. Watch this space!