The Palindromist Magazine - for people who write and read palindromes

08/04/2024

Excitement is building for the 2024 SymmyS Awards for best new palindromes of the year! They will be announced (of course) on Palindrome Day, which is 4/20/2024 this year. (April 20th)

05/03/2024

This is a bit niche, but I'll be giving three talks next week on a collection of unknown Latin palindromes (from Rome, natch, 4th-6th century) that I discovered.

It's at the University of Notre Dame, at the Medieval Academy of America conference. Holler if you're going to be there!

23/12/2023

It's almost time for the SymmyS -- the annual awards for best new palindromes of 2023. You can post them here or email to palindromistmag at gmail.

5 categories -- short, medium, long, poetry and visual (cartoons mostly, but suprise us!) No AI is allowed in any part of your submissions.

Please don't submit more than 5 in any one category, and preferably your best one or two. The palindromes must have been written during 2023.

Good luck!!

22/08/2023

The literally brilliant comedian Myq Kaplan will join the Palindrome Fight! Friday August 25th, 4:55 at the Brewdog Lothian (50 Lothian Road, Edinburgh).

Myq was great at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival's Palindrome Fight! in 2017, and is also doing a standup comedy set on this show.

Don't miss Myq's hilarious and romantic show ImPerfect at the Underbelly, daily at 7:45 pm through the 27th.

Myq's been a comedian for 20 years, a human for 44, and a philosophy guy for... what even is time?! In ImPerfect, Kaplan offers advice to his past self on subjects ranging from traditional marriage to polyamory, quantum mechanics to psychedelics, Moby Dick to Nintendo, reflecting on potential improv...

10/08/2023

TODAY August 10th - 4:55pm - Brewdog 50 Lothian
A peak Palindrome Fight!, as Anthony and Clara Etherin and Lori Wike are in town together for one (more) day only. Yesterday was spectacular, today probably better.

no tickets needed - PBH Free Fringe, just show up.

06/08/2023

Had a great first show of Palindrome Fight! at Edinburgh Fringe, and it will get better tonight as superstar Lori Wike, the runner up at the 2nd World Palindrome Championship (by the smallest possible margin), comes in to join the panel.

Lori is also a professor of bassoon at the University of Utah!

Brewdog West at 50 Lothian, 4:55 pm. Just show up, show is free (but I'll pass a hat for your generous contributions).

02/08/2023

Ah, lovely Edinburgh! Drizzling now, high temp this month will be about 70 F.
Ready for a month of palindrome improv shows! Brewdog Lothian, 4:55 pm Aug 5-27 except Tuesdays.

30/05/2023

Palindrome Fight! returns to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, August 5th to 27th. 4:55pm daily (except Tuesday) at the Brewdog West on Lothian Street.

Everyone agrees it's the world's best palindrome improv show.

11/01/2023

Last call for submissions to the annual SymmyS Awards for the best palindromes of 2022. Post here or send an email to palindromistmag at gmail

5 categories:

1) short palindromes
2) long palindromes
3) medium palindromes
4) poetry
5) visual (eg palindrome cartoons, but open to creativity.)

Please no more than 5 entries per category.

Thanks!

24/08/2022

Our Palindrome Fight! show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has five more shows. In case you're wondering what it's like, Fringe Review printed my diary of it. http://fringereview.co.uk/fringefestivals/edinburgh-fringe-2/general/2022/guest-blog-at-edfringe-2022-mark-saltveits-first-edinburgh-fringe-adventure/

Kilderkin Pub, 65 Canongate, 7:30pm nightly through August 28th.

Why did I think it was a good idea to create my first Fringe show at age 60? That’s easy: it’s an adventure. I started a “zine” about palindromes in 1993, before web pages existed, and it got out o…

13/08/2022

We're having great fun at Palindrome Fight!, the improv show at the Edinburgh Fringe Kilderkin, 7:30pm, nightly through Aug. 28th but not Tuesdays.

Tonight: Eric Dreiblatt from Vermont joins the panel, and another genuine Roman coin will be given away. Last Sunday, two panelists wrote palindrome SONNETS to match an audience prompt. If you're at EdFringe, come join us! (Also free -- we'll pass a hat -- and wheelchair accessible.)

24/07/2022

If you're going to be in Edinburgh, you should of course come see Palindrome Fight! But you can also be a panelist. We'll coach you both in advance and during the show.

You get a share of the hat and -- if your palindrome wins -- a Roman coin.

19/04/2022

https://broadwaybaby.com/shows/palindrome-fight/758635

Improv palindromes! Five panelists, three audience suggestions, thirty minutes of lurid palindrome history and standup comedy, then panelists return to share (and try to justify) whatever misbegotten palindromes they've scratched together. The audience picks a winner. Panelists vary nightly, with a....

17/04/2022

Interested in finding out more about this documentary? Visit the website at: https://thepalindromists.com/

15/03/2022

Great news! The Palindromist magazine is hosted a improv comedy show for the entire Edinburgh Comedy Festival August 5-28th, 7:30 pm each night at the Kilderkin Pub in the center of Old Town.

Come join us! It's free (we'll pass the hat at the end) It's part of the PBH Free Fringe.

21/02/2022

The full list of SymmyS Winners is at Beyond Wordplay magazine:

https://beyondwordplay.com/the-return-of-the-symmys-pleasing-palindromes-from-all-over-58af1ba37902

21/02/2022

The overall runner up for the SymmyS is Jon Agee again, by himself:

21/02/2022

The Grand Prize Winner of the 2022 SymmyS is .....
this cartoon collaboration by Jon Agee (artist) and Doug FInk (writer).

21/02/2022

Happy Palindrome Day! (in the U.S.)
2/20/2022

(Europe, take a breather for two days until 22/02/2202)

We celebrate by announcing the winners of the SymmyS Awards for best new palindromes of 2021. It's the Oscars of Palindromy!

Let's start with the poetry winner, bassooner (bassonist, I guess?) John Falcone, of Noreña, Spain. Amazingly, John is not the first palimerick-writing bassoner who has won an YmmY award. That would be the mighty Lori Wike of the Salt Lake City Orchestra.

10/01/2022

The SymmyS Awards are coming up! Entries are due January 10th -- post them here or email palindromistmag at gmail.
5 Categories -- Long, Short, Medium, Poetry and Visual (= Cartoons).

Please no more than five entries per category per person.

Good luck!!

15/11/2021

Here's a 5 minute scholarly talk by Palindromist editor Mark Saltveit about recent discoveries re: Sotades the Obscene, the inventor of palindromes, and his ex*****on around 276 BCE for a dirty joke that insulted King Ptolemy II Philadelphus.

This is part of the Schoenberg Conferences on Manuscripts and Loss, at the University of Pennsylvania this week; they have a series of "Lightning Lectures."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTTzzE71Pio&list=PL8e3GREu0zuAok9pFcgFSDTFqzLc5uRbh

Presented by Mark SaltvietSotades of Maronea (aka Sotades cinaedus, Sotades “the Obscene”) was a famous (and notorious) poet of Hellenistic Alexandria. He ad...

30/09/2021

How it's done

30/09/2021

From editor Mark Saltveit

15/08/2021

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/09/montage-art-of-palindrome

Mark Saltveit and the art of palindromy

27/06/2021

I had the great honor of being a guest on "The Dork Forest," Jackie Kashian's long-running celebration of geeking out on various subjects. Episode 623!! https://tdf.libsyn.com/mark-saltveit-spelled-backwards-is-not-a-palindrome-623

She's a very funny comedian, don't miss her live if you get the chance. (She often opens for her friend, the incomparable Maria Bamford.)

Mark Saltveit ( and palindromist.org loves him a frontways/backways pile of letters that say the same thing and WE GO BACK to the LATIN. This is amazing. You will love. Donate to The Dork Forest if you like the show. There’s paypal links and venmo my email address. Links to everything is at...

15/05/2021

Did "The Dictionary Podcast" with Spencer, which was a lot of fun. We broke down a single page of the dictionary, one loaded with chunky words such as "chartreuse," "chary," "chartulary" and "charwoman." Which does NOT mean "burnt female co**se."

18/04/2021

Here's an incredible visually palindromic sketch by some 1960s French group. h/t to Alex McKeown ( on Twitter). Bonus: trendy hippie groovosity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noy0DdjG3FI&t=2s

ureb, isrem, isrem

15/04/2021

This was a super fun podcast, a deep dive into the world of ancient, medieval, modern and musical palindromes with Anthony Etherin, Lori Wike and Mark Saltveit -- 37.5% of the contestants at the second World Palindrome Championship.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/834940/8341422-episode-23-lori-wike-and-mark-saltveit-palindrome-special

Don't miss Anthony's new book of palindromic (and otherwise constrained) poetry for Penetrant press, Slate Petals (the followup to his classic Stray Arts.)

Episode 23 of the Penteract Podcast, hosted by Anthony Etherin and Clara Daneri, and featuring an interview with Lori Wike and Mark Saltveit, about the history, present, and future of palindromes in literature and music. Read about the Sator S...

02/03/2021

My talk on the history of Latin and Greek palindromes (with Cornell Classics prof. Michael Fontaine) is now on YouTube, if you missed it yesterday. (If you attended, thanks!!!)

https://youtu.be/azq-hio8oy4?t=236

This talk features a joint presentation by Mark Saltveit, a world champion palindromist and standup comedian, and Prof. Michael Fontaine, Professor of Classi...

10/02/2021

The ancient history of palindromes -- a webinar featuring Cornell Classics Professor Michael Fontaine and Palindromist editor Mark Saltveit. It's free, too!
https://www.paideiainstitute.org/palindromes_talk

Living Latin and Ancient Greek