North Brooklyn literati face a nightly dilemma. Although the area is an internationally recognized youth mecca for music and the visual arts, NYC lit culture remains a decidedly bourgeois, button-down affair, with dual centers of gravity persisting downtown and in South Brooklyn. (Eww – $16 cocktails and seas of Clarks ankle boots. Eww – G train.)

But luckily, we’ve got our own thing going on. And for the past five years, our very own lit journal, The Bushwick Review.

Last Saturday evening, The Bushwick Review launched its sixth issue at area stalwart Molasses Books (770 Hart St) among a crowd of 50+ cramming between shelves of small press offerings and signed copies of John Ashbery’s collected works. Journal founder Kristen Felicetti promotes the project as both a community and platform for local artists, but the issue also includes pieces from writers and artists outside the immediate area, including Colorado, LA, and Berlin.