‘That they have been aided by a culture which celebrates men behaving badly and football as an art form is without doubt.’
From 1997, Archie Cotterell’s take on Oasis.
Interview | ‘Whose freedom would you sacrifice for your own?’: Performing The Crucible in 2025
‘It’s an obvious thing to say but bad things happen when people are afraid, oppressed and silenced. If we could only take heed of the lessons that history has attempted to teach us.’
Hannah Saxby and Phoebe Pryce discuss performing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in 2025.
Review | Use the Words You Have by Kimberly Campanello
‘Use the Words You Have is not just a novel of desire. It’s a meditation on the nature of language itself.’
Bruce Omar Yates reviews Kimberly Campanello’s debut novel, Use the Words You Have.
Essay | Wendy Erskine: ‘Short stories are our natural mode.’
‘Short stories are our natural mode. There’s nothing intimidating about the short story. We have been reading and telling them our whole lives.’
An essay on the short story form by Wendy Erskine, reproduced with permission from 22 Fictions.
Interview | ‘An anti-flâneuse kind of existence’: In conversation with Lauren Elkin
‘I don’t know if it’s very interesting to read fiction where you can feel that the author is judging the character. It’s so important that the novel be a space of non-judgment, for the readers to take from it what they will.’
Rosa Appignanesi interviews Lauren Elkin.
Archive | Ted Hughes and Crow
‘Poetry is nothing if not the record of just how the forces of the Universe try to redress some balance disturbed by human error.’
From 1971, an interview with Ted Hughes.
Podcast | Gurnaik Johal
‘This is where I say to any budding writers out there: write historical fiction!’
Gurnaik Johal on The London Magazine Podcast.
Essay | The Kind of Shaking that Keeps You Steady: Alice Notley (1945–2025)
‘The insouciant yet deeply serious quality of Notley’s writing struck me. Here was a poet eschewing all templates, excavating the self with both horror and humour.’
Momtaza Mehri pays tribute to Alice Notley who passed away this May at the age of 79.
Fiction | Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal
‘It had been an early education, Nathu thought, in the fact that all history was historical fiction. A story had a longer life than a fact.’
An extract from Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal.
Archive | Children of the Earth by Henry Miller
‘What about the fate of our children … is there nothing to be done for them?’
This essay by Henry Miller was originally published in the July 1959 edition of The London Magazine.
Interview | Caught up in History: In Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyên
‘What becomes important for me is to think about ourselves not only as individuals, which is what memoirs are typically supposed to deal with, but as people who are caught up in history.’
Arjuna Keshvani-Ham interviews Viet Thanh Nguyên.
Fiction | Here it Was, the Start of Life by Harriet Armstrong
‘I wanted to learn something that would shock me, something that came from someplace very far outside of myself. I was tired of learning things I could have pulled out of my own mind very easily and passively.’
New fiction by Harriet Armstrong.
Poetry | Aspiration by Kevin Graham
‘We talk lightly as if we know the outcome / of things, the floor of knowledge // an oily ghost that leaves me when they shift / gears into medical jargon.’
Winning poem from The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2025.
Tote Bags
Introducing our latest tote bag, available exclusively on our online shop for a limited time. Featuring bespoke illustrations of W.H. Auden, Philip Larkin, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Hardy, George Orwell, and Jean Rhys by our resident cartoonist, Dan Sperrin. Made of 16oz black colour canvas, our totes come with reinforced handles and a woven TLM ginkgo leaf…
£18.00
Podcast
On The London Magazine podcast, we speak to brilliant writers, poets and artists about their craft, inspiration and career so far. New episodes every month.
Podcast | Gurnaik Johal
‘This is where I say to any budding writers out there: write historical fiction!’
Gurnaik Johal on The London Magazine Podcast.
Podcast | Leo Robson
‘One of the things that the novel is about is different forms of chronology that we mark things by.’
Leo Robson on The London Magazine Podcast.
Podcast | Mark Bowles
‘To exaggerate something is like putting a magnifying glass on it. You exaggerate your rage, you exaggerate your love, and you can see it more clearly.’
Mark Bowles on corporate jargon, his love of espresso and whether or not his book can be called an anti-English novel.
Archive
The London Magazine has a publication history spanning almost three hundred years, and has featured work by some of the most prominent names in literature, from John Keats to Hilary Mantel. In this curated selection, we share our favourite pieces from the TLM archive.
Archive | Oasis in 1997 by Archie Cotterell
‘That they have been aided by a culture which celebrates men behaving badly and football as an art form is without doubt.’
From 1997, Archie Cotterell’s take on Oasis.
Archive | Ted Hughes and Crow
‘Poetry is nothing if not the record of just how the forces of the Universe try to redress some balance disturbed by human error.’
From 1971, an interview with Ted Hughes.
Archive | Children of the Earth by Henry Miller
‘What about the fate of our children … is there nothing to be done for them?’
This essay by Henry Miller was originally published in the July 1959 edition of The London Magazine.
