Meet Extra Teeth: Words With Bite

We meet Jules Danskin and Heather Parry, the duo behind Scotland's most exciting new literary magazine, Extra Teeth

Feature by Ross McIndoe | 24 May 2021
  • Extra Teeth

Explaining how Extra Teeth came to be, Jules Danskin and Heather Parry’s story will be familiar to anyone who has found most of their best friendships and all of their best ideas in the space between bar rounds. "It was characteristically alcohol-fuelled," Danskin says. "I used to run an independent bookshop – Golden Hare – and we used to put on lots of literary events. Heather came up on my radar as an excellent event host and we kind of just got to know each other going to the pub after events. Then we started talking about the Scottish literature scene and how there’s some really cool magazines but nothing quite like what Extra Teeth ended up being."

Parry’s version of events is even more straightforward: "To my memory, we’d just ordered a carafe of wine and you just went, 'D'you wanna start a magazine?' and I was like 'Oh, go on then'." Between them they had the experience, skills and connections to produce a magazine that could live up to its 'words with bite' mantra, but they figured they could use some help making the space around those words just as sharp-toothed. That meant hiring a guest illustrator to provide the visuals for each issue and, as Danskin put it, "a shit-hot designer" to bring it all together. Which is where Esther Clayton came in. "It’s really exciting working with the illustrators," she says. "The responses that we get from them blow me away every single time."

While it might have had a gleefully haphazard beginning, Extra Teeth came into the world with a strong sense of who it wanted to be. First and foremost, it would not be a chancer. "We always knew from the beginning that we didn’t want to be one of those magazines that doesn’t pay creatives for their work because that’s kind of a big issue in the industry," Parry explains. "So we didn’t really have any option other than to take to Kickstarter – I think it took about five years off my life. It was so stressful."

But with the funding in place, they were able to commission a dream team of writers, with the likes of Kirsty Logan, Camilla Grudova, Jay G Ying, Jess Brough and Janice Galloway contributing work to the first issue’s eclectic collection of short stories and essays. While they have now moved to accepting submissions as well, each issue of Extra Teeth is still firmly themeless. "I don’t want someone to write something because they think we want to read it, I want someone to write something and then share it with us because they want us to publish it," Parry explains. Rather than a particular topic or tone, the stories are united by something slightly more ephemeral. "Bold is the word I keep coming back to. It can be about anything, really, but it has to be uncompromising work coming from the writer – like Kirsty Logan’s cannibal fetish story! I think you can feel when writers are holding back, and I always want to say, 'What did you really want to write?'"

Though they consciously wanted to avoid turning the third edition into 'the COVID issue', readers can expect something a little darker this time around. "There’s almost like a claustrophobia to some of the pieces," Parry explains. "Malachy Tallack's story is about human relationships and loss and saying goodbye, then Helen McClory’s piece is set in an airport that seems to go on forever and she can never get out of, so it doesn’t take an English Literature degree to go, 'I think these people might have gone through some experiences in the past year.'"

They’re also more than happy for writers to get experimental with the form and structure of their work. And while it is a Scottish literary magazine, its definition of Scottishness is similarly up for grabs. "We want it to be as broad as possible," Danskin explains. "Whether you have lived or studied in Scotland before or you set a bit of your story in Scotland or you’re born in Scotland and move away, we really want to expand what Scottish literature means rather than define it."

In fact, that desire to bulldoze the borders around the accepted idea of 'Scottish Literature' has been a driving force for the magazine as well. "The worst thing is when you go into a Waterstones and they’ve got like one table of Scottish literature: why aren’t these just on the shelves?" says Parry. "We wanted to not border ourselves off and to be able to show the best of Scottish literature to the rest of the UK and the world. We want to take Scottish literature and go 'Look, it’s really good! You don’t have to put it on a table by itself, it stands on its own merit and then some!'"

A flick through the pages of Extra Teeth and you would struggle to disagree.


The third issue of Extra Teeth will arrive on 27 May. Submissions for issue four will open on 1 Jun, while interested illustrators are also encouraged to get in touch

extrateeth.co.uk