Melinda Moustakis

‘We all would like to think that with one line, one brush, we could make a reader fall madly in love, and there are writers that elicit such a response with the appropriately gorgeous.’

Issue 128

Melinda Moustakis

‘She’s a good-for-nothing chummer. If she survives a week on the slime line without cutting off her thumb or slicing her wrist, she’s hired.’

Issue 128

Andrew Motion

‘What am I doing here more than looking – / which I would stop / only to help things through their vanishing’

Adam Nicolson

‘It is the wildest part of the American South-West and, in a way, its most beautiful.’

Thomas McGuane

‘Barring weather or a World Series game, on Sundays I’d pick up a nice little box lunch from Mustang Catering and take Grandma some place that smelled good.’

Dorothea Lasky

‘Hi there, dear sister, I’m sad / But here to tell you / That you never did amount to anything’

Kseniya Melnik

Kseniya Melnik, chosen in 2010 as a Granta New Voice, shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.

Nadifa Mohamed

‘It was in one of those listless summers after graduation that I found myself in the small Japanese town of Sasayama.’

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

‘We are not burying one of us in snow.’

Aoko Matsuda

‘‘Let’s become monsters together,’ she said, looking straight into my eyes.’

Mitsuyo Kakuta

‘I was gazing into my empty bowl and realizing how little time it takes to eat when you’re not carrying on a conversation.’

Yoko Ogawa

Katie Kitamura

‘The following are some of the Japanese players who also appeared in the major leagues during the Age of Ichiro.’

Valerie Miles

'Never underestimate the power of a grandmother to leave her mark on coming generations, or the taste of her cooking to cause an epiphany big enough to give the world a shiver.'