‘Imagine if an alien came to earth and asked, so how to you reproduce?’
We discuss Blue Ticket and the body horror of motherhood.
Sophie Mackintosh speaks to editor Josie Mitchell about her new novel, Blue Ticket. They talk about what it means to be pregnancy-adjacent, the bloodthirsty aspects of motherhood, and letting the body have what it wants.
You can find more fiction by Sophie Mackintosh on Granta.com, including ‘The Last Rite of My Body’ and ‘The Weak Spot’.
‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’
A story by Sophie Mackintosh.
‘Sebastián Bruno’s careful documentation of the communities of South Wales, is made up of images stark in their beauty.’
Sophie Mackintosh introduces photography by Sebastián Bruno.
‘I do wonder to what extent writing about motherhood is actually writing about being mothered’.
‘My ex-boyfriend dies, and we all gather to put our hands into his body.’ New fiction from Sophie Mackintosh.
‘After 2016 I’m done with sentimentality, and it’s hard to think of a less sentimental book than The Piano Teacher, objectively a masterpiece, subjectively a book that changed my life.’
‘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.
