Lucy Wood

‘He was stamped darkly onto the wide stretch of sea like a single footprint.’

Ghassan Zaqtan

‘Nothing’s left to say between us / everything went / into the train that hid its whistle.’

Elise Winn

‘The year I turned seventeen, the cicada chorus was deafening, as if they were impatient for the real beginning of summer and didn’t realize they were it.’

Edmund White

‘The freedom conferred by masks. Children and current wives cannot blame you for what your characters do and say.’

Issue 34

Geoffrey Wolff

‘The Great Santa, like circumstance itself, blew hot and cold; He was all caprice, chance, crapshoot.’

Issue 80

Lindsay Watson

‘The effeteness of a small number of King's students was fascinating to me at first, then repellent, and before long completely uninteresting. They dressed in peculiar clothes, talked in silly voices and appeared to me to be living caricatures of the human race. At times I longed for some familiar ordinariness and found it with boys from other colleges who introduced me to football and pool and pubs.’

Issue 109

Brad Watson

‘The mother told the boys that she was much unappreciated in this house.’

Juan Pablo Villalobos

‘The Brazilian banking system was created by a Czech writer called Franz Kafka.’

Ivan Vladislavić

‘The corporate storyteller is having a bad day.’

Issue 50

Tran Vu

'"So, our last night of socialism," Dzung said as he squatted down beside me. I pulled two cigarettes out of my pocket and handed one to him, but didn't reply.'

Eudora Welty

‘There is no telling where I may apply, if you turn me down.’

Issue 124

Ellen Bryant Voigt

Issue 71

Edmund White

‘Self-doubt, which is a cousin to self-hatred, became my constant companion.’

Issue 23

Gavin Young

‘Balls flew towards the beach or into dense jungle. Enthusiastic young fielders tumbled head over heels in the morning glories. Village elders, large, heavy-breasted, critical men, lay in the shade on cushions discussing the course of play like contented sea lions on their favourite rocks.’