SWAMP Beginnings

In 2008, Patrick Bryson and Peter Bower were musing over publications and the lack of postgraduate student run publications for postgraduate creative writers. Patrick thought it would be a great idea to start one, and pitched the idea to Peter to create an online publication. Together they built SWAMP, which operates out of the Callaghan campus of The University of Newcastle. SWAMP’s name was chosen due to the location of The University of Newcastle, which is partly built over the wetlands. SWAMP takes a tentative step out of the murk of creative writing workshops towards the clean air of the academy.

SWAMP’s logo from 2008 through 2012.

Publication Statistics
With our first issue published in June, 2008, SWAMP has successfully published 28 issues to date. In mid-May 2013, with 12 issues on the site and just prior to the launch of our new site design, the site had over passing 58,000 views across the website from people around the globe. Now, on 19 January 2022, just prior to the release of Issue 28, the site has passed 135,500 views.

Our first nine issues saw submissions from over 280 students from 65 universities across 9 countries (Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Sweden, South Africa, India, Canada and The United States of America).

Since then, we have seen our reach expand to even more universities and countries. From countless students (we actually lost count…!), we have had the honour to publish 207 poems and 215 prose pieces from our contributors!

We publish approximately 25% of submissions. This means, as we publish our 28th issue, we have read around 1,700 submissions from amazing writers around the world! Thank you for your support!

Archiving The Site
Our intention is for SWAMP to be around indefinitely, with fellow students stepping in as each editor graduates. This is our ideal situation. But, regardless, SWAMP is archived by the National Library Of Australia’s Pandora Project. It is a government initiative to preserve Australian online publications indefinitely to prevent publications being lost when/if websites ever die.

SWAMP
ISSN 1836-0106