"A nice minimalist piece of surrealism"
- Michael Joyce, hyperfiction pioneer.
I started Sane Magazine in 1993 as a one to two paged newsletter in the back of a restaurant in Charlton, Mass. called Ronnie's Seafood. It was called "The Quiet Insanity Newsletter."
At the end of the summer, I went off to attend Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, NY, where The Quiet Insanity Newsletter remained a fiction outlet and writing exercise.
In late 1994 I obtained an account on iberia.vassar.edu, the library's web server, and began publishing the newsletter at http://iberia.vassar.edu/q-i/.
The magazine moved to www.sanemagazine.net in 1997, where it has lived ever since, coming out with a weekly issue and set of horoscopes which are read by more than 200 people weekly.
The main issue has been a development ground for characters, styles, themes, and approaches that have manifested themselves in my other writing over the years. It has allowed me to create my own voice distinct from the various influences which have touched Sane and the motivation behind continuing it.
A few highlights:
God Coffee, I Miss You is the forthcoming novel from Sane Magazine founder Matthew Hanlon. He is the author of Time: a novel. Sane Magazine has been coming out weekly, with horoscopes, since 1997. This is what The Rambler would have turned into, had Samuel Johnson been immortal. Or perhaps not.
William Murphy has also come along with the advent of Sane Magazine, a hard-boiled detective writer alter-ego who can deliver his two fledgling novels in serial bursts to the Sane Magazine audience. William may have been technically been born, At Swim-Two-Birds-style, in Brooklyn, but he will forever be a local boy, from Vernon Hill, in Worcester, Mass.