When courting, first impressions can seduce, or repulse, the object of one’s affections. Since the editors’ note graces the first page in the journal, it carries the heavy burden of enticing readers to continue their ‘getting-to-know-you’ process with the publication. Where we would hope to find the editorial equivalents of Cyrano de Bergerac eloquently spruiking for the (as-yet) voiceless contributors to Wet Ink, we instead encounter some Dogberry-like blunders in this first note. We may hear echoes of Chaucer in their humble assertion that Wet Ink is a ‘little’ magazine, but the editors’ stated campaign to ‘attract a wide range of readers … who may feel excluded from the more “literary” publications’ does little to endorse the fledgling works of literature showcased in the pages that follow.

This statement is a forgivable malapropism on the part of the nervous suitor. Most likely, it reflects a momentary lack of focus due to the excitement the editors feel at the quality of their contributors’ works. Their enthusiasm is warranted, and several works in this first issue are particularly attractive. Tom Morton’s ‘In Luminous Darkness’, a fervent coming-of-age story, is played to a rocking 1970s soundtrack and sets the animated tone that extends to each of the subsequent works. Readers will be intoxicated by Tom Shapcott’s bibulous poem, and will be shaken (and stirred?) by ‘Dark Palace’, Peter Barry’s unsettlingly precise allegory of our post-9/11, terror-centric society. Residual effects of this work’s intensity are sustained in Meg McNena’s poem, which is an exquisite commentary on several strata of violation, captured in two finely wrought stanzas.

A relationship devoid of humour will be short-lived; thus the journal’s mood is lightened by Sam Franzway’s ‘Smoking’, an onanistic Modest Proposal for the twenty-first century, and James Roberts’s ‘The Death of Danny Boy’. These works earned several full-bodied guffaws and kept this reader engaged at crucial moments. The decision to conclude the issue with Stefan Laszczuk’s ‘Evol’ is quite clever: the editors are evidently aware that in a courtship one always craves a riveting evol poem.

Reading printed journals is a tactile experience, as much as it is an intellectual one. Two aspects in the configuration of Wet Ink created significant distractions in reading this first issue. First, the unconventional layout – zigzagged paragraphs, serpentine or circular lines of text, diagonal blocks of writing – was off-putting and complicated the reading process, to the work’s detriment. Secondly, I admit to harbouring a preference for holding paper with the texture of milk poured over marble, and viewing rich, sharp images on glossy pages. In this magazine’s case, recycled paper, paired with what appears to be all-natural ink, makes for a lacklustre package. Nonetheless, Mother Nature will undoubtedly rejoice at the Wet Ink team’s conscientious decision to use environmentally friendly materials, even if my fingertips resent it.

Kudos is due to the journal’s production team for rectifying the first of these irritating design problems in Wet Ink’s second issue. Thankfully, the wacky layouts have largely been replaced with traditional columns of text, which removes needless visual barriers and, appropriately, allows the magazine’s personality to take precedence over its appearance.

If you are the company you keep, then Wet Ink could not hope for a better reputation than the one it has begun to establish here. Michael Wilding’s ‘Arts Doco’ opens this second issue with such a fine piece of writing that the journal’s goal of becoming a vehicle for works that are ‘worth watching’ seems close at hand. The ‘author interview’ is also proving to be an enlightening feature of Wet Ink: the Nabokov-styled interview with Frank Moorhouse in the first issue is full of insights into the Australian publishing industry, accumulated from his years of experience as an author and editor. In this second issue, we are given the welcome opportunity to be inspired by Susan Johnson, as she candidly discusses motherhood, getting published and her role as a London-based Australian writer. Though Wet Ink is primarily a ‘magazine of new writing’, the alliances it has forged with such accomplished authors certainly lends credence to the publication in general.

It would seem, however, that many of the ‘new writers’ who have contributed to the magazine hardly need such endorsement. To describe the lancing accuracy of Gillian Britton’s rendering of evanescent love in ‘The Involuntary Function of Living’ as merely ‘poignant’ would do a disservice to this profound work. Doug Evans proves to be a connoisseur of symbolism in his ‘Rusty Timmins and the Case of the Bloody Conjugal Chamber’; readers will be rewarded for persevering with this lengthy tale. A deftly wielded narrative twist is brandished just in time to prevent this story from suffering from predictability.

More than 1500 years after being inscribed, it would seem that Augustine’s musings on our most mercurial emotions still hold true: with contributions like the ones included in the first two issues of Wet Ink, a desire to continue my dalliance with this publication has been thoroughly kindled.