Debut issue of this important downtown magazine. Inspired by editor Rose’s agent chastising him for using a dot-matrix printer for his manuscripts, and named for the block where he and partner Catherine Textier lived, BETWEEN C&D was the center of some of the most innovative fiction to emerge from mid-80s NYC. Produced entirely by hand and home printer, C&D combined pioneering desktop publishing methods with more bespoke elements — such as this issue’s hand-drawn cover, by Joel Rose — all slipped into large plastic bags meant to evoke drug packaging. The first issue includes work by Cartherine Texier, Scarlet B., Emily Xarter, Patrick McGrath, Kurt Hollander, Jeff Wright, Tom Savage, Hariette Surovell, George Loewe, and a “special photo-romance” (laid in separately) by Hektor Munoz and Mario Sostre. A reaction against the Updike- and Cheever-esque workshop fiction prevalent at the time, “BETWEEN C & D presented one of the strongest forums for [cutting edge] work” (Stosuy, UP IS UP… 17).
