I don’t know how we pulled it off, but we did it.

Fed up and bored only a few days into the summer, I decided to stop scrolling through online magazines like Rookie and Plasma dolphin and make my own. Within minutes I enlisted the help of Rachelle cox; one of the most creatively open people I’ve ever met (and my bestie). We started putting together the ultimate dream team of writer, photographers, and just general creative cool people we wanted to work with. And that was the day KILORAN was born.

3 months, approx 100000000 emails and 2 different logos later it turns out that starting a magazine aint easy. Over the time I discovered that telling yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow” can last for 6 weeks, I have no idea how to use a semi-colon and I don’t know anything about computers. But I also learnt that the people I’m working with, both surrounding me and spread across the country and world (hi Sonja Katanic and Lauren Hardy), are amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so inspired to write and work. Seeing conversations flood with ideas, having Starbucks meetings that fill pages and pages in a notepad and constantly welcoming new people to the KILORAN team has left me ready to go go go.

One of the first conversations me and Rachelle had about the issue was whether we wanted to theme it, toying with the idea of the theme of “introductions”. But instead we decided to just let each contributor run free in the creative field, let go with only the instruction of “create what you want, it’s totally up to you” leaving us host to a collection of everything from pieces on social/political issues to photo stories. I think that’s what I love most about this issue- Each piece is the brain child of its creator, no external input, no over-ruling, just each person’s creativity in its originality.  And I couldn’t ask for better, every time I read through a contribution I wanted to leak the whole mag tbh.

On a personal mushy note- This is something I’ve dreamed about for ages, developing the idea of KILORAN long long before it was born. And now looking at the final product makes me wanna cry just a lil. I’m so happy, happy to finally have been able to set a release date and get this stuff out there, happy to have the privilege to share the insane work of insanely talented people, but mainly happy to have had the chance to work with some killer guys and gals. Thank you, I adore you all, keep doin what you’re doin.

But there’s many more “thank you”s to deliver-

  • To anyone that contributed in anyway at all, you built this.
  • To my mum and dad for dealing with stress induced tears and always trying to help me deal with tech trauma.
  • To Sonja Katanic for helping me navigate WordPress and inspiring me to start a mag by founding the amazing plasma dolphin.
  • To Nescafe latte packet thingys(and to my mum for buying them)
  • To Izaak Bosman, for always inspiring me to keep writing, always keeping me positive and always being exactly the person I want to be.
  • To YouTube for supplying “WordPress for dummies” videos.
  • To Rachelle Cox, for reminding me that the world still existed and was still good when I needed it most.
  • To Ted Loveday, and to the guy that made the Hapax Legomenon remix vine.
  • To Bridie Lonsdale and her Dad for being web design saviours.
  • To Patti Smith, cause she always deserves a thank you from me.
  • To all the friends that pulled me away from my laptop and back into the world.
  • To spotify, what would I do without you?
  • To Daisy-Chain Scott for reminding me how much I love writing and always being reliable and lovely.
  • To the internet in general.
  • To everyone I know, you all helped without knowing.

And so here it is. We finally birthed our child and their name is KILORAN.

Onto work for the next.

Love, Lucy Harbron x

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