What is Pushing Out the Boat?

Pushing Out the Boat, North-East Scotland’s unique literary & arts journal, publishes high-quality prose, poetry and art selected from a unique blend of the global and the local. In its pages are thrillingly gathered artists and writers from all around the world, as well as just around the corner, creating a linguistic mix that welcomes Doric, Gaelic, and a world of eclectic Englishes that help to bring us a’thegither. We maintain a strong commitment to first time writers and artists, and to outreach, by supplying copies to local schools and libraries and awarding prizes to young contributors. We aspire to offer readers the very best regional literary magazine in Scotland

Who are we?

A team of dedicated enthusiasts passionately committed to promoting creative culture over profit. All volunteers, the individual members of the team have a wide range of experience and skills relevant to the creation, administration, production and promotion of a high-quality literary magazine. We achieved charity status in 2014.
POTB13 Launch

How do we do it?

Submissions to the magazine are assessed anonymously by three selection panels – prose, poetry and visual art – each consisting of invited editors/artists who are persons of standing in their field. The blank pages of each edition await population by unpublished artists and writers, alongside the more experienced, all selected on talent and happenstance. The complex tasks of copy-editing and layout are then undertaken. The organisation’s use of the web and email as the primary channel of communication keeps administration efficient and low-cost, as well as widening our following beyond the home area.
POTB13 Launch
Most of the magazine’s expenses are met by sales income, and we have received welcome financial support from local councils in Aberdeen City and Shire. We are justly proud of our popular fund-raising events – where contributors are invited to showcase their work – and of our valued associations with local cultural organisations.

POTB13 Launch

Our ambitions

One of the team’s main ongoing objectives is to raise our profile. We achieve this with help from our many valued supporters, our vendors – bookshops, galleries, artists’ studios, coffee-houses – and through our website www.pushingouttheboat.co.uk, which also lists places where you can pick up a copy or order directly online. On the site you will find the striking front covers of each edition, plus details and samples of the work; the full content of each magazine from issue 9 onwards is available to view on ISSUU. We work to increase visits to this site year on year, using social media and the like. We are also keen to encourage talent early by offering publication opportunities to writers and artists aged from 12 to under 18. Perhaps most of all, along with all our contributors, readers, and supporters, we aim to see Pushing Out the Boat a fixture in North-East Scotland’s literary firmament.

Our Patron

Anne Begg
We are delighted to have Dame Anne Begg as our Patron. After teaching English in Angus schools for 19 years, Dame Anne served as the Labour MP for Aberdeen South from 1997 to 2015. During her time in Parliament she chaired a number of important committees including the Work and Pensions Select Committee. She is the only permanent wheelchair user to be elected to Parliament since 1880. Her work promoting equal opportunities including those of disabled people was recognised in the 2011 New Year’s Honours List when she was awarded a DBE. Among her many other activities, Dame Anne is now a Council member of the Scottish Social Services Council and the Patron of Cornerstone, a community care charity.

Whilst an MP, Dame Anne attended several Pushing Out the Boat launches and was delighted to present prizes to and encourage some of the young writers included in POTB 13. As a teacher she promoted the use of Scots dialects so is very keen to see more contributions in the Doric.