In Conversation
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Two Poems
Mark Waldron
‘Something good leaks out of the world / Something bad leaks in’
Poetry by Mark Waldron.
Notes on Craft
Natasha Calder
‘What strikes me most, though, is how writers and climbers share an appetite for failure.’
Natasha Calder on bouldering.
Ocoee
Kwame McPherson
Overall Winner 2023
‘I was alone and isolated. But I was not scared.’
Fiction by Kwame McPherson.
Fancy Little Spoon
hurmat kazmi
‘All sex is about letting go, I tell myself, and it is about time I do.’
Fiction by hurmat kazmi.
Two Poems
Maya C. Popa
‘the widening gap / between two kinds of life: the one lived and the one / remembered.’
Two poems by Maya C. Popa.
Podcast | Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid
‘The place we come from, the place we call home, is the home of our suffering.’
Jamaica Kincaid talks about finding her way to writing.
Mister, Mister
Guy Gunaratne
‘It was through the telly, Mister, that I learned how my Mothers saw themselves.’
An excerpt from Mister, Mister by Guy Gunaratne.
86
Natalie Shapero
‘it’s wrong / to let delicacies, even when suspect, go untried’
A poem by Natalie Shapero.
Oceans Away From My Homeland
Agnes Chew
‘At the entrance to the gynaecology clinic, I ring the bell.’
Fiction by Agnes Chew.
The Undertaker’s Apprentice
Hana Gammon
‘It was small and delicate and its song was simple but sweet – the perfect gift. The perfect offering.’
Fiction by Hana Gammon.
Notes on Craft
Colin Grant
‘Always I tell myself: yes, you transmit but do they, the readers, receive?’
Colin Grant on distilling truth in memoir.
Lech, Prince and the Nice Things
Rue Baldry
‘I spend the afternoon scarifying ceilings. My neck and shoulders are killing me by the time I leave.’
Fiction by Rue Baldry.
Kilinochchi
Himali McInnes
‘Parents should not have to bury their children. I will come to you, she whispers.’
Fiction by Himali McInnes.
Jealous Laughter
Joanna Biggs
‘She could not make me see my best qualities, but she could sit with me.’
Joanna Biggs on literary friendships between women.
Stupid Girls
Rhian Sasseen
‘It was 1 a.m., and it was Los Angeles; they were used to indiscretion.’
A story by Rhian Sasseen.
Stockholm
Yan Ge
‘I’m curious to know what you did with your milk there, Jacob said. Did you dump it, or, did you drink it?’
A story by Yan Ge.
Podcast | Claire-Louise Bennett
Claire-Louise Bennett
‘I want the reader to be conscious of reading and not being just drawn into the book and forgetting themselves and forgetting their life.’
Claire-Louise Bennett on her novel Checkout 19.
Giver
Molly Lynch
‘A single drop of milk clings to my right nipple like a promise. Or a taunt.’
A short story by Molly Lynch.
Podcast | Lynne Tillman
Lynne Tillman
‘In a sense we are always haunted by our past and what psychoanalysis is, for me, is not about cure but about understanding those ghosts.’
Lynne Tillman on her books Weird Fucks and Haunted Houses.
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘What does the list tell us about the next generation or the state of the nation?’
The editor introduces the issue.
The Cloud Factory
Graeme Armstrong
‘There’s this paradoxical nostalgia where even though yi suffered, yi miss it.’
Memoir by Graeme Armstrong.
A Certain King
Jennifer Atkins
‘I didn’t think she was happy; I thought she was in love, but I didn’t know what that told me, if it told me anything.’
Fiction by Jennifer Atkins.
The Hair Baby
Sara Baume
‘She has been ten for a month and she does not like it. She carries the weight of her extra digit like a chain-mail vest.’
Fiction by Sara Baume.
A Dying Tongue
Sarah Bernstein
‘What needs explaining was that, and it was a funny thing, a very funny thing, I did not speak the language.’
An extract from Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein.
Universality
Natasha Brown
‘She boils her sentences down to high-sucrose sweeties and calibrates her tone for maximum engagement.’
Fiction by Natasha Brown.
Doubtful Sound
Eleanor Catton
‘I knew that Dominic had cheated on me. I couldn’t tell you when, or who, or how many times, but I was certain that he had.’
Fiction by Eleanor Catton.
She’s Always Hungry
Eliza Clark
‘I could hear the sea, and I could hear my own name.’
Fiction by Eliza Clark.
The Room-Service Waiter
Tom Crewe
‘There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’
A story by Tom Crewe.
Strangers at the Port
Lauren Aimee Curtis
‘The other islands in the archipelago had their active volcanoes; now we had the men.’
An extract from Lauren Aimee Curtis’s forthcoming novel.
Ivor
Camilla Grudova
‘We were sent to Wakeley Boarding School aged eight for Year Five and stayed on until Year Twenty.’
Fiction by Camilla Grudova.
A Note in the Margin
Isabella Hammad
‘I register that phrase with pleasure, my brother.’
Isabella Hammad on migration, mentors and disappointment.
Theories of Care
Sophie Mackintosh
‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’
A story by Sophie Mackintosh.
Circles
Anna Metcalfe
‘He was grumpy in a way that I enjoyed. It reassured me that he was easily displeased – he was discerning, I thought.’
Fiction by Anna Metcalfe.
