Above the Hook

The magazine

The Local Lookout

A printed quarterly from a corner above Sandy Hook Bay.

  • PublishedFour times a year
  • Carried in~350 locations, Monmouth County
  • VolumesFour, one a season
  • First issueWinter, Vol. 01
The run of Above the Hook covers, laid out.

Why print

Print, on purpose.

Everything else we make is on a screen. The magazine is the one thing that ends up on a counter, in a waiting room, on the passenger seat — and stays there for three months. It is the slowest thing we do and the one people keep.

Inside

Summer Vol. 03 being read on the beach.
It is a thing people take somewhere and sit with, which is the whole reason it is printed.
Bird tracks running through wet sand at the tide line.
Looking up through bubbles at the bridge from underwater.
A work glove floating among fallen leaves on dark water.
Gateway to the World — the standing photographic series.
Winter Vol. 01 — an ice boat under sail through pack ice.
Spring Vol. 02 — horseshoe crabs at the tide line.
Fall Vol. 04 — a clamming skiff among fallen leaves.
The run of covers, laid out.
Four a year, and counting.

The run so far

Winter cover — a red ice boat under sail through pack ice on Sandy Hook Bay.

Winter · Vol. 01

Ice on the bay

An ice boat under sail through the pack, with the town on the far shore.

Read it
Spring cover — four horseshoe crabs in the shallows at the tide line.

Spring · Vol. 02

The crabs come in

Horseshoe crabs in the shallows, which they have been doing here for rather longer than we have.

Read it
Summer cover — a figure mid-air, jumping from the bridge into the bay.

Summer · Vol. 03

Off the bridge

The jump, the bridge, and the water underneath it.

Read it
Fall cover — a clamming skiff with wire baskets, autumn leaves on dark water.

Fall · Vol. 04

The last of the clamming

A skiff, wire baskets and rakes, and the leaves already down on the water.

Read it
An aerial of the channel cut through pack ice on the bay.

Where to find it

350

Issues are placed across Monmouth County — shops, cafés, marinas, waiting rooms. Places you can walk into and pick one up, which is the only kind of number worth printing this large.

Subscribe

Or have it sent to you.

A subscription is four issues a year, posted. The digital edition is free to read online.

Read the magazine

A small number of pages in each issue are given to businesses from this stretch of coast. If that is you, we would rather talk than send a rate card — tell us what you are trying to do and we will tell you whether the magazine is the right place for it.

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