Present Company

Fiction

6th March 2025

“The children step forward one by one, and say, ‘I’m special because…’ and one by one they fill in why with brave, loud voices. They’re too young to hide who they are. The people watching them know them better than they’ll ever know themselves.”

Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily

and Fiction

3rd October 2024

This month’s story is co-authored by Eley Williams and Nell Stevens. It’s from Duets, a new anthology of co-authored stories, published this month by Scratch Books.

Meantimes

Fiction

11th September 2024

A new story by Lucy Sweeney Byrne from her second collection of stories, Let’s Dance, which will be published next month by Banshee Press.

The Might of Bahari

Fiction

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!'

Gallery Attendant, 37

Fiction

4th July 2024

A new short story from Wendy Erskine, written in 48 hours as part of our Great Big Giant Short Story Experiment.

An Old Friend

Fiction

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.’

Hotel

Fiction

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.’

Settling Down

Fiction

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?’

Burn Heart

Fiction

7th February 2024

‘After a while he forgot he was dancing with his pen pal’s mother and he believed she forgot that he was the soft pouchy boy her daughter had brought home. That was the joy of it. They forgot themselves.‘