Review | Isobar Press: A Canvas of Language by Ian Brinton
News | Short Story Prize 2021: Fernando Sdrigotti wins first place for his story ‘Pier’
Colombian Edition – Call for Submissions | The London Magazine
News | Nicole Flattery wins The London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction for ‘Show Them a Good Time’
News | Poetry Prize 2020: Rosamund Taylor wins first place for her poem ‘The Proof’
The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2020 awards first place to Rosamund Taylor, for her poem ‘The Proof’, as part of its annual competition. Steven O’Brien, co-editor of The London Magazine, praised ‘The Proof’ for being “apt, polished and daring”, commenting further that “Rosumund Taylor’s urgent, gem-like winning submission shows that the great linguistic machine of poetry still thrives. “Congratulations also go to the second and third prize winners Toby Campion […]
News | The London Magazine Debut Fiction Prize 2020 shortlist announced
This year, the judges have remarked on the extraordinary variety of offerings that is reflected in their shortlist and Matthew Scott, the chair of judges, comments that “though it’s a cliché that the quality of submissions is ever improving, the excited enthusiasm of the judges across the board does seem to bear this out: it has been a rich year, and a wonderful one for reading – a rare positive in an otherwise extremely difficult time […]
Review | Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene by Richard Greene
Biographers have three ways of dealing with their predecessors. They can generously thank them, ignore their achievement, or viciously attack them. Richard Greene (no relation to Graham) misleadingly links Michael Shelden’s deeply flawed book (l994) with Norman Sherry’s impressive three-volume 2,250-page work (1989-2004). Sherry conducted many interviews with Graham from 1904-91, and his first two volumes were perceptive and convincing. Richard calls […]
The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2021
Over the years The London Magazine has been home to some of the most prestigious poets in its long publishing history, from John Keats to Sylvia Plath and Derek Walcott. Our annual Poetry Prize seeks out new voices in poetry, providing a platform for publication in the UK’s oldest literary journal. All poems submitted must be previously unpublished and no longer than 40 lines. We have no criteria as to theme, form or style but we are looking for fresh […]
Interview | Karen Ashton on Viral Art Car Boot Fair
Essay | Books That Changed My Life: ‘Tales from Ovid’
‘I don’t get poetry.’ It’s a miserable cliché, but generation after generation takes it to heart. In fact, as a teenager studying for my GCSEs, I believed it myself. Still sporting K-Swiss trainers and a swooping Justin Bieber fringe long after it was a good look (if it ever was), I was stuck in my old ways. I was a novels person, I thought — poems were too brief to affect me deeply or really sear themselves onto my psyche […]
Interview | Rick Gekoski on Darke Matter, scepticism and reading for pleasure
Rick Gekoski awoke one morning from uneasy dreams and inexplicably found himself metamorphosed into a writer of fiction. He was seventy-three years old, a retired academic, former Booker prize judge and Chair, broadcaster, bibliographer, private press publisher, journalist and rare book dealer. He had never published a word of fiction. His novel, Darke (2017) was prompted by an insistent inward voice, and its author was called “a late-flowering genius of a novelist” in The Times […]
News | Southbank’s Everyday Heroes art and poetry project to celebrate key workers
The Southbank Centre has announced a new public art and poetry project celebrating the invaluable contributions of key workers who have kept the country running during the COVID-19 crisis. Everyday Heroes will comprise original portraits – whether in the form of paintings, drawings, photographs and texts – reproduced as large scale posters for a dynamic display across the Southbank Centre from mid August to November 2020. The portraits are to be shown […]
Update | A Note on COVID-19
We ask readers to be aware that the production team remains working from home and that print times are inevitably somewhat slower than usual with the result that print copies of the June/July issue of the magazine have been delayed, available on back order and may take a week or so longer than expected to reach you. The June/July Supplementary Pamphlet will be released mid-June so may arrive separately for some orders […]
Spotlight VI: Small Presses | British Book Awards Special 2020
With publishers big and small struggling through the current crisis, it is important for us to shine a spotlight on small presses, the work that they do and the books and authors that they publish. Recently recognised among the nine regional and country winners in the Small Press of the Year Award at the 2020 British Book Awards, today we shine the spotlight on four of the best small presses currently publishing in the UK and Ireland: Jacaranda Books, Sandstone Press, Comma Press and The Lilliput Press […]
News | The London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction 2020
The London Magazine has launched its debut fiction prize, formerly known as the Collyer Bristow Prize, for a third year running. The award will be administered by the magazine’s editorial team. First launched in May 2018, the prize aims to celebrate exceptional literary fiction, inviting publishers to submit one debut work of fiction each that was published in the previous calendar year. This can include collections of fiction by a sole author, but the book must be in its original […]
Staff Picks | April 2020
Fiction | Silver Lining by Charlotte Newman
Things were not so free back then, but I was. Still a girl, living in my body. We’d been at the pictures, her dad and me, slurping pop, finding each other’s hands in the space for drinks. He waited until we got to the station to kiss me, which seemed so out of character. I’d seen no proof of happiness in marriage and dishwashers, so when he asked me back to his flat, I didn’t mind. It wasn’t ‘beyond’ I was after […]
News | Short Story Prize 2019/20: Rachel Bower wins with ‘Against the Tide’
The London Magazine Short Story prize 2019/20 awards first place to Rachel Bower, after her short story ‘Against the Tide’ impressed our panel of judges during this year’s competition. The response was overwhelming, and we would like to thank everyone who entered to the competition this year. […]
News | Rachel Bower, on winning The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2019
I am thrilled to have won The London Magazine Short Story Prize, and would like to thank the panel of judges and everyone involved for their time and energy in making this happen, especially during such challenging times. I am sorry not to be able to offer my thanks in person, but hope to meet everyone in the future, when we are through the current crisis […]
News | Poetry Archive callout asks poets for home video readings during lockdown
For the 20th anniversary of the Poetry Archive’s first poetry recording, with their live recording programme necessarily suspended, the Poetry Archive is finding new ways to include poets so they can ‘preserve the poetry which records this extraordinary year’. From April 10th to September 10th 2020, the organisation is opening up their archives to all poets, asking that they make a video of themselves reading or reciting a single poem – for example, ‘through their phones […]
Interview | Sam Riviere on Martial, authenticity and stealing
“I discovered Martial’s poetry by searching for the number 104 for an unrelated reason, which was recorded on Wikipedia as being the year he probably died. I trust this kind of chance occurrence, and it led me to reading some of the epigrams, which I imagine I had vaguely heard of before. I responded immediately to their playfulness, sarcasm, brevity, devotion to social commentary, and general refusal of seriousness – especially things like Martial’s own admission that his poems aren’t even that good, a lot of the time.” […]
Update | A Note on COVID-19
Dear Reader, We are all facing extraordinary circumstances, and at The London Magazine we think it is important to remain open and transparent at a time when things can feel frightening and uncertain. Sadly, many of our beloved bookshops have had to temporarily close their doors, however […]






















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