Idle Ink is an online publisher of short stories, poetry, essays and anything curious.
Idle Ink was founded by J.L. Corbett in 2017, when she wanted to be involved in an upcoming creators’ fair but had nothing to sell. When she approached the organiser with claims of being an experienced zine-maker he believed her, and she was promptly given a table at the event. She convinced a few friends to contribute short stories and her then-boyfriend (now husband) to design a cover, and within a few weeks she had herself a completed zine.
She sold a few copies at the creators’ fair and not too long afterwards created a second issue, this time advertising online for contributors from further afield. Over the next few months she sold both issues at a string of zine fairs across the North of England, where she met other creatives and learnt about the power of collaboration.
In 2018, she moved Idle Ink online in order to collaborate with a wider range of writers and reach a larger audience. It was a surprise success, and over the next eighteen months the website featured work from almost one hundred writers and poets from all over the world, from Yorkshire to Brazil and everywhere in between.
In 2020, after a brief hiatus, she pushed Idle Ink into its third incarnation: an online magazine featuring short stories, reviews, articles, personal essays and anything curious.
In 2022, she launched the Idle Ink Podcast, in which she chats to writers who have been published in Idle Ink before and attempts to get to know them as people, not just as writers.
Today, Idle Ink embraces art. We want genre fiction that’s too weird to be published anywhere else, articles that poke fun at modern life, challenging personal essays, book/film/TV show reviews full of unpopular opinions. If it’s strange and questionable, Idle Ink wants it.
J.L. Corbett 