The Couch
Inaugural Issue · A letter from the editor
The first letters are being written.
The Couch is a small magazine I have been wanting to publish for a long time. It is where I will write about kitchens and contracts, about books that changed me, about living in two languages, and about a country that raised me and a city that took me in.
Issues will come out when they are ready, not on a schedule. The first one is being put together now. If you would like to know when it lands, the easiest way is to send me a note.
By Iliana Paulino · Vancouver, May 2026
In this issue · Vol. I, No. 01
Six stories on the way
De la Cocina · From the Kitchen
Why I wrote my first menu in a notebook
Lo Pecao began on the page before it ever became a kitchen. A short story about the small choices that decide whether a restaurant survives Tuesday.
Coming this issue
El Bufete · From the Bar
The most expensive sentence I ever read
Six years of corporate banking law taught me that contracts are not paragraphs. They are time bombs, and they are gifts. Mostly time bombs.
Coming this issue
De la Cocina · From the Kitchen
What working the line taught me about strategy
A season as a line cook in Stanley Park, and what every executive should learn standing next to a flat-top on a Saturday night.
Coming this issue
Dos Lenguas · Two Tongues
Two languages, one brain
On the daily strangeness of thinking in English and dreaming in Spanish, and the small things that get lost in the gap between the two.
Coming this issue
Código · Code
The first AI tool that changed my mind
I came to AI suspicious. I left it convinced. A short account of the day my conviction flipped, and what it might mean for everyone running a small business.
Coming this issue
Postales · Postcards
From Santo Domingo to Stanley Park
Notes on the immigrant arc from the Caribbean to the Pacific Northwest, and the small surprises of building a life in a new city.
Coming this issue
Departments · Vol. I
What you will find here
Ensayos
Essays
Long form. The bigger ideas, given room to breathe.
In the first issue
De la Cocina
From the Kitchen
Restaurants, kitchens, recipes, and the small choices behind a good service.
In the first issue
El Bufete
From the Bar
Law as a way of seeing the world. Contracts as drama.
In the first issue
Libros
Books
What I am reading. What I have read. What changed something.
In the first issue
Dos Lenguas
Two Tongues
Living and thinking in English and Spanish, and the gap between them.
In the first issue
Código
Code
AI, code, and the craft of building digital things.
In the first issue
Postales
Postcards
From Vancouver. From the Dominican Republic. From elsewhere.
In the first issue
Colophon
The Couch is published from Vancouver, BC, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Edited and written by Iliana Paulino. Trilingual in English, Spanish, and French. Issues appear when they are ready.
Vol. I · No. 01 · May 2026
Back home