Philadelphia literary magazine launches TV show

A Philadelphia literary magazine is releasing its second issue this week, as well as its own television show. The “Apiary Mixtape” is a public-access TV show that will debut Friday and feature interviews and performances by the Apiary magazine writers.

One of them is Sean Casey, who served as a captain in the war in Iraq. He now writes poetry as a member of the veterans group, the Warrior Writers. In an interview for “Apiary Mixtape” he explains the voice in his head that snatches away any feelings of accomplishment he might have.

“It’s a very negative and self-loathing voice that always talks to me,” he says. “My therapist calls it my ‘dark cloud.'”

The piece is written in the persona of that cloud. He read it to an audience at the Rotunda in West Philadelphia earlier this year: “There are even times when I myself dangle these juicy examples of self-worth in front of you. Jesus, is it hysterical to watch you strain to grab hold of them, the punch line being when you quit and walk back to me and have a nice little cuddle.”

“Apiary Mixtape” was produced for public-access TV through Philadelphia Community Access Media (PhillyCAM). Apiary is the first organization to go through PhillyCAM’s training process, soup to nuts. All the footage was shot and edited by the magazine’s co-founders Lillian Dunn and Nick Forrest.

“We’re like, man, this is such a cool moment in Philly literature right now,” said Dunn. “Such a wild diversity of literature happening on any given day. We wanted to be able to preserve this moment–this moment we would love to celebrate.”

The print version of Apiary was possible only with the online fundraising tool Kickstarter. The TV show was free.