‘My da, I say, is the famous Wullie Collins. He's the Robin Hood of Scotland. He takes from the rich and gives money to the poor. My da’s a bank robber.’
I’m five and a half years old, attending the Saint Roche primary school in Glasgow. The teacher, Miss O’Donnell, has asked us each to stand, walk to the front of the class and tell the others what our fathers do.
My da’s a railway worker, says one and sits down.
My da makes ships, says another.
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘Naturally, no partnership is perfect. Certain pieces will be at odds – you’ll have that.’
Fiction by Nico Walker.
‘One did not have high hopes for Gettysburg. Nor for Pennsylvania in general. Having grown up in Indiana, Diana felt she’d earned her condescension.’
Fiction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens.
‘When you are a female this is what happens: if you are not selected to be a mate by age twenty-seven, you are asked to get on the bus.’
Fiction by Sophie Frances Kemp.
‘A should probably write that it hit uz like a smack in the guts, or the red mist cem down or sumet like that, but in all honesty, a can just remember feelen upset.’
New fiction by Shaun Wilson.
‘He takes the knife, cuts the barb from the body, sends it back to the depths of the river.’
An extract from Not a River by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott.
‘She felt things under the skin: scars where the body had torn during childbirth, clumps of cellulite, lobules and ducts.’
