Tuerto

As an English-language reader in South America, I am constantly frustrated. Stories are everywhere, and too many go untold. Whether it’s an investigative piece about how mercury gets to illegal mines, a character sketch of an El Alto bus driver, the natural history of Venezuelan vanilla — you name it. There are too many stories, and not enough getting written, especially in English.

Sure, if a story is connected to New York or London (or Toronto or Dublin), great — it has a chance of getting written and published. If not, well, hit or miss. And miss, and miss, and miss.

Tuerto will be a monthly online magazine about what is really happening here in South America. In English. There are a lot of good reporters here, doing interesting work. We think there are also plenty of readers, worldwide, who care about South America on its own terms. It’s not just “where can I go to shoot capybaras” but “how do local families feel when capybaras join their pig herds?” People who want to know about this place for its own sake. (That’s not to say that we’re opposed to news you can use. Learning about a place should help you travel, invest, and sure, go hunting if that’s what you’re into.)

So that’s what we’re trying to do. We hope you enjoy the writing, and we hope that if you’re in South America yourself, you’ll consider writing for us.

We’re honored to have our first guest post, from Otto Rock. The guy has a great blog, Inca Kola News. If you don’t already know it, go check it out. Love him or hate him, you won’t find a sharper wit keeping tabs on gringo dumbassery in South America, South American goofiness, and all things cuprous and auriferous. The thing about his site that makes it different from so many other finance, economics and mining blogs is that he has been in South America forever, and it shows. It’s not that a person changes so much here. It’s just that the things that might have seemed surprising or bizarre when viewed from abroad become commonplace. The things that surprise a resident might never have even occurred to a foreign observer. Like that first guest post — had you heard about a Lima housing bubble? Me either.

We are only running the blog for now as we get the site set up, but soon we will be putting out a monthly electronic magazine. We plan to charge a modest fee for access to the full magazine. That should give paying readers something interesting to look at, and give writers a paycheck. More on that later. For now, if you have any interest in writing for us (either the blog or the magazine), please send a note to peter@tuerto.net or steven@tuerto.net. Thanks.