1. Articles

Essay | Paris on the Page by Jude Cook

‘We’ll always have Paris,’ as Bogart famously drawled to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, alluding both to their own affair and the city’s enduring quality of romantic vivacity; its embodiment of Eros versus the forces of Thanatos, in this case represented by the Second World War. He doesn’t have to elaborate on what Paris symbolises; its superabundance of light and love, its promise of amorous adventure. Not many cities are so neatly metonymic. Yet the title […]

Poetry | Write It by Helen Mort

Because I can’t, a rat redrafts the lower reaches / of our house at night, cursive across high ledges, / forcing the bright idea of its body through masonry / to trace the lines of copper pipes. A huge buck, / gnawing plastic, caches of cat food, grazing on lintels. / With slivers of wood, he stories his kind: […]

Fiction | The Operated Englishman by Alex Pheby

It’s going to test our collective patience, but I’d like to take some time to talk about – I suppose eulogise – my old friend Gary ‘Little’ England(-er). As much as I’m able to, of course – he was so much more complicated than I could ever claim to be. It would take a real writer, an actor, an artist, a doctor, a fashion designer and probably a psychoanalyst all-in-one to do Gary justice – the things he said, the way he walked, the things he did, who he was. I’m not quite up to it […]

Essay | Reader, You’re Late by Rebecca Watson

When I talk about the experience of writing my debut novel, I often catch myself using an authority I do not recognise. This is what I was thinking, that is how it happened. I hear the assertion, and I find myself wondering: is that true? It is not that I lie. I believe what I say. But simultaneously, I am suspicious. Remembering is a form of repaving, and the trouble is, writing is a fickle practice. Not in the writing but the memory of it. What happened in the immediate is different […]

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