Was there much interplay between the rest of the New Worlds writers and Ambit or Paolozzi?
Well, I introduced Jimmy to Eduardo. I knew a number of pop artists mostly through Chris Finch, an art critic who began working for New Worlds around 1967, when I changed the format and paper stock so that we could run contemporary art as well as fiction. There was some interplay with Ambit because Jimmy became literary editor and commissioned work from me and Michael Butterworth, for instance. New Worlds was a commercial news-stand magazine. I brought specific experience to it and I had no interest in editing a ‘little magazine’. We had a big crossover audience with things like Oz and IT. We were appealing, I think, to a broader readership than Ambit, yet we took more risks. Ambit, ironically, seemed aimed at a narrower readership, more academic and consciously literary. Our original ideas had involved bringing a more confrontational, risk-taking fiction to a popular audience. I knew how to appeal to the wider market and New Worlds, especially in its larger format, did that. Circulati
Well, I introduced Jimmy to Eduardo. I knew a number of pop artists mostly through Chris Finch, an art critic who began working for New Worlds around 1967, when I changed the format and paper stock so that we could run contemporary art as well as fiction. There was some interplay with Ambit because Jimmy became literary editor and commissioned work from me and Michael Butterworth, for instance. New Worlds was a commercial news-stand magazine. I brought specific experience to it and I had no interest in editing a ‘little magazine’. We had a big crossover audience with things like Oz and IT. We were appealing, I think, to a broader readership than Ambit, yet we took more risks. Ambit, ironically, seemed aimed at a narrower readership, more academic and consciously literary. Our original ideas had involved bringing a more confrontational, risk-taking fiction to a popular audience. I knew how to appeal to the wider market and New Worlds, especially in its larger format, did that. Circulati
