6th August 2024
'As she flew through the sky in the white clouds, Fatma agonised over the expectations placed on her. She thought about all the cars she was expected to bring back to her village, and the promises she had made to find people jobs – as if she could create opportunities in Bahari!'
1st August 2024
‘I have tried everything. It is no use. I can write multiple paragraphs in advance, perfectly pleasant paragraphs. Pleasant and mild and safe is all my brain is interested in when I try to write something in good time.‘
4th July 2024
A new short story from Wendy Erskine, written in 48 hours as part of our Great Big Giant Short Story Experiment.
27th June 2024
‘A year into writing a second draft, I catch the first unsettling drift of unease, like something unpleasant and indefinable under the floorboards.’
5th June 2024
‘Normally I hate swimming in the ocean, everything about it scares me deeply; but after a few drinks I dive in fearlessly, with abandon and hope.’
24th May 2024
‘There’s nothing to compare to that satisfaction for a reader: reading as assent, when words close on their matter with such precision, such clean truth. Only if you’ve tried to write can you know how difficult it is to achieve that transparency and wholeness.’
22nd May 2024
A young revolutionary encounters the power of music, desire, and loss, in this queer love story set in Lesotho, Africa.
5th April 2024
‘At the end of the corridor, through a door, Sylvester emerged into a games room. A skittles alley games room. It was a long room, whose centre was two brightly polished skittles alleys, and the boy. For there was a boy. There was.’
13th March 2024
‘Before I became a writer, I had already failed quite a lot. I like to think it was good practice.’
5th March 2024
‘There’s just something about the way you are together. It’s a quiet sort of thing, but I’d say it works, doesn’t it?’