Savannah's newest arts and literary newspaper wants you to feel understood through poems, art

It’s easy to feel isolated these days, especially when going outside comes with so many risks. Every day we’re faced with the challenge of figuring out how to connect with others while keeping ourselves safe.

This was the same challenge Carly Lieberman and Shelby Little faced when they moved to Savannah in September 2021.

“I was coming from a community that I had lived in my whole life (Boston) and I had all these friendships and access to people if something was going wrong in my life,” Lieberman says. “I have excess emotions. I had a group that I could just like fling those at and people just let me be excess. When I moved here, I didn't have that.”

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To bridge this gap, Lieberman found herself pouring that excess into romantic relationships. It wasn’t long before she realized how unhealthy that was, drawing the conclusion that if she was feeling like this, then others must be too.

So, Lieberman turned to her roommate Shelby Little and conceived a print literary and art publication that would hold hers and everyone else’s excess.

Of course, Peanut Butter Shrimp is a name that’s guaranteed to catch eyes and raise brows. Lieberman explains, “[It] was like a term of endearment that I came up with with a friend forever ago, just like ‘aww my little peanut butter shrimp,’ almost like a cute dog or something.”

She decided to apply that nickname to the publication because she enjoyed how it felt to say out loud. “That’s the gist of the whole newspaper. Just stuff that feels good to say out loud.”

'Stuff that feels good to say out loud'

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Lieberman leads most of her editing and publication process this way, by instinct and feeling.

When she was in Boston, she studied animation in undergrad and acted in comedy shorts with her friends. Now, despite having no background in poetry or literature, she is taking words a little more seriously, but not so seriously it strips them of their raw authenticity. This sincere vulnerability is what she looks for when reviewing submissions.

“I do kind of curate stuff, but it's really more like I look for stuff that feels like someone is abstract painting words or like someone made it in earnest,” she says.

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Still, there are other, more unsexy lessons to learn when running a publication.

Because Peanut Butter Shrimp launched as a monthly print, Lieberman quickly discovered how expensive that could get. With the paper being both free to submit to and free to pick up — a non-negotiable for Lieberman — she had to get creative about how to sidestep expensive printing without compromising the free status.

“So, instead of on a monthly basis, it's every two months now. I just started inventing month amounts of time,” she explains. The May/June issue became “Mune” and July/August became “Jaugust,” while she plans for the September/October issue to be “Soctober.”

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It’s especially admirable when the easy route would be to make things digital. However, the print format is something Lieberman feels a strong conviction about after just moving to Savannah and spending days at coffee shops or bars just scrolling on her phone…alone.

“It's something to look at that isn't your phone that's like a little biopsy of what is happening around you,” she says. “I feel like it's a much more in-depth way to understand community when you see what they're making.”

She also explains there’s a much more satisfying serendipity that comes with finding the paper while going about your day-to-day, instead of falling down some “link vortex” or having to “Instagram stalk anyone to find this thing.”

'Savannah is not a vacuum. It is a place that's super interwoven.'

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Now, you can find the latest copies of Peanut Butter Shrimp in local haunts, such as the Connect Savannah mailbox outside of Brighter Day, inside Sentient Bean, Fox and Fig, and Lone Wolf.

Sometimes, you can find Carly and Shelby at First Fridays near Sulfur Studios. The duo has also hosted a couple Drink and Draws at smol bar located in Two Tides Brewing on De Soto.

Lieberman laughs at how different this community support is to the brief time she spent living in LA. “I felt so so alone. And when I moved [to Savannah], I was like, ‘Alright, I don't have the resources and the people I've known forever,’ but I didn't feel that same sense of ‘I am in a vacuum,’” she says.

“Savannah is not a vacuum. It is a place that's super interwoven.”

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This is why even in a time where it’s so easy to feel isolated and fearful of connecting with others, outlets like Peanut Butter Shrimp make it easier to not feel so hopeless.

“As far as feeling vulnerable and putting something out there, I feel like it is really really important to choose just small acts of embarrassment every day and then you will feel just a little more seen,” Lieberman says. “And then if you're lucky, you'll feel understood, and the whole paper is to try and make a community out of that one idea.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Peanut Butter Shrimp becomes new Savannah GA art, literary newspaper