Issue 128

Mona Simpson

‘‘I have a body now,’ I whisper.’

Lauren Holmes

‘Okay don’t sell yourself,’ said my mom, ‘sell the American dream.’

Adam Fitzgerald

‘Would you like to come with me for some / old-fashioned inconclusive combat?’

Kazushige Abe

‘The crucial thing was to cool the baby off, bring the fever down.’

Zia Haider Rahman

‘My wife and I were both the children of Pakistanis, immigrants, Muslims, and we had faith that our union was of things greater than ourselves.’

Issue 129

Tim Winton

‘All that yearning spilling down amid the treetops and roof ridges, a shadow I’d never properly considered before.’

Fiona Benson & Rachael Allen

‘I’ve always wanted to write from the gut, to write instinctively rather than cerebrally.’

Adrian Tomine & Francisco Vilhena

Sigrid Rausing

Sigrid Rausing

Sarah Moss

‘She kneels and bows her head almost to the floor, as if pretending he’s one of her idols.’

Darcey Steinke

‘I had a new persona I’d been planning to introduce the first day of school: a girl wise beyond her years who was not at all nerdy or spastic or prone to crying jags.’

Katherine Faw Morris & Yuka Igarashi

‘I wanted her to be a pit bull.’

Issue 129

Will Self

Striking the keys of the same typewriter that once sat under J.G. Ballard’s fingers, Will Self reimagines the legendary writer’s last days.