Explore Essays and memoir
Sort by:
Sort by:
Notes on Craft
Jonathan Lee
The author of The Great Mistake discusses the importance of opening lines.
Mr Brown, Mrs White and Ms Black
Kei Miller
‘Yes, Ms Black. Mrs White and Mr Brown have arrived.’
An new essay by poet Kei Miller, from his forthcoming collection.
Introduction
Valerie Miles
‘We wanted work of the imagination. Fiction. Consciousness captured on the page.’
Guest editor and co-founder of Granta en Español introduces the issue.
Crystals
Kate Lebo
‘Sam had a urate crystal in his toe, built by genes and rich eating.’
Kate Lebo on Xylitol.
The Valley and the Stream
Danyl McLauchlan
‘Why does serotonin make you happy? How does it affect mood? What is mood? What is depression? How does any of this stuff work?’
Best Book of 1891: The Birds of Manitoba
Sylvia Legris
‘During the pandemic, birds (along with many insects and wild plants) have landed in my life and poems again.’
Best Book of 1978: Who Do You Think You Are?
Emily LaBarge
‘I have read them so often that sometimes I cannot remember what is mine and what is hers’
Best Book of 2019: Better Never Than Late
Ukamaka Olisakwe
‘This book is about how to navigate the thorny valley of dead dreams. Some will survive the ordeal; others will tip over the edge, irredeemable.’
Best Book of 1998: Symbiotic Planet
Daisy Lafarge
‘Symbiogenesis is horizontal and anarchic, a frenzy of illicit fusions and mergers – energies coming together for mutual benefit.’
Daisy Lafarge on the best book of 1998.
Best Book of 1924: The Beggar
Bill Manhire
‘I still have, somewhere at the back of my head, the notion that there are real poets out there and that all the rest of us are just pretending.’
A Bleed of Blue
Amy Key
‘I was trying simultaneously to numb the grief I felt and to burrow into that grief, so I could stand in it.’
