Babyteeth gives a voice to talented creatives who struggle in mainstream publishing

Lore White is the creative genius behind Wollongong’s Babyteeth Journal, an online literary and creative arts journal, publisher and small press.

Originally from Newcastle, Lore’s family moved to the NSW village of Gravesend, before settling in Wollongong when Lore was eight.

“I like to say that I just switched steel cities, but I like Wollongong better,” Lore says.

Lore attended the University of Wollongong for a creative writing degree then volunteered for local arts organisations, including the now defunct Wollongong Writers Festival.

“I also worked with Sarah Nicholson on her Heroines anthology series for a while,” Lore says.

“Heroines was the first book that I helped to edit, and where I gained a lot of my skills in admin which is the most precious skill when it comes to running an online arts journal!”

Lore established Babyteeth with the help of a government program called NEIS, an initiative for aspiring entrepreneurs that provides individuals with training, mentoring and income support.

In June this year, Babyteeth – which publishes three featured artists each month – will have been running for eight years.

Lore says the decision to form Babyteeth was from a desire to use their skills that had been gained during their time in publishing to showcase “marginalised voices, especially queer and trans voices”.

“I know all of these super talented people and there’s nowhere that’s really showcasing a lot of it,” Lore says.

“In the mainstream, a lot of things are never going to get picked up because they are taboo for whatever reason.”

Lore wanted Babyteeth to be a different space.

“We need that smaller pond to help with diversity in publishing because if there was just one it would be a monopoly. And you’ve seen that with film, a monopoly in film makes film boring.

“I’ve always had the ethos that you should try to make where you are better. Create community where you are and do what you can do to support the people around you.

“That’s why we do publish anyone from anywhere, but that’s why I wanted to have this focus on people local to the Illawarra.

“I have a little special place in my heart for the local guys. Wollongong has a wildly high ratio of incredibly talented people; I look around and I’m like, ‘How are we all in this one little city?’”

This was the premise of Babyteeth’s first anthology from 2019 called Never Heard of Them, an anthology that published emerging writers from the Illawarra and South Coast. The anthology was funded by Wollongong Culture Bank and was distributed online as an e-book and as a limited print release.

Lore says that over the past eight years it has been great to see international engagement.

“We’ve published people from multiple different countries, and it’s really cool to see people from around the world interested in Australian poetry.”

Lore is looking forward to the future.

“We’ve been on hiatus since the end of October last year. We just had our first publication round for February. I am working on implementing partnerships with local podcasts and creative businesses.”

In September in collaboration with South Coast Writers Centre, Babyteeth will help run the Strange Folds Zine Fair, a local zine fair that has been running for the past two years.

Community is important for the journal.

“Babyteeth is supporter funded. The money that we pay our features is provided by our patrons on Patreon,” Lore says.

The journal will always remain free, but Lore hopes to shift focus away “from being on other social medias as much” and choosing to “hone in on the Patreon”.

Patreon is an online community and content-sharing platform where creators share videos, podcasts, text, music and other forms of expression.

Lore says the journal “wouldn’t be anything without the people that submit their work. So, they’re the real heroes.”

Visit Babyteeth Journal and follow them @babyteetharts on Instagram.