The Print Annual
Once a year, on paper that smells right.
The Print Annual is Wire on paper, once a year: 180 pages, no advertising, one essay from every name on the masthead. Everything in it is written for print and stays off the site for twelve months. It is the only thing we make that cannot be updated after the fact, which changes how the writing gets edited.
How it is made
Uncoated 120gsm stock, section-sewn so the thing lies flat on a desk instead of fighting you, two inks, and a spine you can read across a room. It is printed by a press that spends the rest of its year on art books and treats a magazine like one. The run is 3,000 copies, hand-numbered, and there is no reprint: when it goes, it goes. Copies ship in the second week of November.
Everyone in it is paid the same flat fee, whether they have written for us for six years or six weeks, and the whole edition carries no ads. Those two facts are why it costs what it costs.
How to get one, and how to be in one
Preorders open in September. The annual is 26 dollars plus shipping, or 18 dollars if you are on Studio Pass, which you can add from your membership page at any point before the run sells out. Members get first refusal for two weeks before general sale, because members are the reason there is a press bill we can pay.
Pitches open on 1 May and close on 1 July. We want 2,000 to 4,000 words on something you cannot let go of, and we would rather have an argument than a survey. Accepted pieces are paid on acceptance, not on publication. If you would rather hear it than hold it, a handful of the essays are read aloud on Wire Radio through December.
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