The North Carolina Anvil (or simply The Anvil) was an alternative weekly

Alternative weekly

An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper, that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture. Their news coverage is more...

 newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

, subtitled "a weekly newspaper of politics and the arts," published out of Durham, North Carolina

Durham, North Carolina

Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...

 from April 15, 1967 to August 11, 1983.

Origins

The Anvil was begun by publisher Robert V. "Bob" Brown (June 10, 1933 - February 5, 2006), who had previously published a mimeographed civil rights newsletter, Chapel Hill Conscience, during 1963-1964, and the literary magazine Reflections from Chapel Hill, and award-winning poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

 writer Leon Rooke

Leon Rooke

Leon Rooke, CM is a Canadian novelist. He was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina in the United States. Educated at the University of North Carolina, he moved to Canada in 1969. He now lives in Toronto, Ontario....

, who had been employed in the News Bureau of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

 and had been the fiction editor for Reflections. In 1969, Rooke left The Anvil, moving to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 so that his wife could take a teaching position at the University of Victoria

University of Victoria

The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...

.. Brown remained at the editorial helm for the remainder of The Anvil's run, retiring in 1983.

Focus

Similar to other alt-weeklies or underground newspapers of the era, like The Berkeley Barb

Berkeley Barb

The Berkeley Barb was a weekly underground newspaper that was published in Berkeley, California, from 1965 to 1980. It was one of the first and most influential of the counterculture newspapers of the late 1960s, covering such subjects as the anti-war and civil-rights movements as well as the...

 and The Village Voice

The Village Voice

The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

, The North Carolina Anvil focused on arts and entertainment as well as reporting of local political, social, and economic issues for the area in and around The Triangle

The Triangle (North Carolina)

The Research Triangle, also known as Raleigh-Durham and commonly referred to as simply "The Triangle", is a region in the Piedmont of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by North Carolina State University, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and cities of...

 of North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

. Although its politics were comparatively moderate and it was unlike other underground papers in both style and content, The Anvil was a member of both the Underground Press Syndicate

Underground Press Syndicate

The Underground Press Syndicate, commonly known as UPS, and later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate or APS, was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the...

 and the Liberation News Service

Liberation News Service

Liberation News Service was a New Left, Underground press news service which published news bulletins from 1967 to 1981.-History:The Liberation News Service was co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom after the two of them were separated from the United States Student...

. Its circulation in the mid-1970s was reported at 8000 copies.