April 13th 1807 I was hiding in the closet with a sock stuffed in my mouth. Short shallow rapid breathing. I tried with great difficulty to not make a single sound. They were like lions cleverly preying strategically on an unsuspecting plump gazelle. Peering through the slight crack, I watched on as the bright flames Read more […]

It’s my fourteenth day as a bagger, the first day I can’t keep my eyes off the rooster-shaped clock above the candy aisle. I’m still in the probationary period at Swifts, so I do what I can to focus, make a game of it. Each new bag can be optimally filled in less time than Read more […]

‘… wipe the villages from the face of the earth, stopping at nothing… liquidate the bandit group based in the villages of Upper Balkaria once and for all.’ – General Kozlov, head of Stalin’s 37th Army, Soviet Union, 1942   ***   The ‘bandit group’ that General Kozlov was referring to was the Circassians, citizens Read more […]

At the Gilberts   The Gilberts were eating pasta with their three children in the kitchen-diner of their newly built red-brick house in West London the evening I met them for the first time. They asked me to join them but I said I had already eaten. Sarah Gilbert made me a coffee, using freshly Read more […]

The daffodils in the garden are in full bloom. Nafisa is looking at them through her window with that wistful look, as though a longing has filled her heart. In the opposite house Solomon is working the ground, tilling the dirt, preparing the beds for the growing season. His ginger cat, a rusty old girl Read more […]

Tahmina Hussain grew up in the West Midlands. She is currently teaching English for Academic Purposes to non-native university students, and also tutors primary school students with basic English and Maths. Tahmina graduated from Newman University with a BA in English in 2015. After finishing her BA she wasn’t yet ready to go into teaching, Read more […]

Jen Knox was born and raised in the Midwestern states and has worked primarily in the non-profit sector and academia. She writes about tumultuous family relationships and our relationship with the natural world. Jen Knox’s latest short story collection, The Glass City, won the Prize Americana for Prose and is now available from Hollywood Books Read more […]

Biycekizi is a short story writer based in America and the author of Ghazi.   Q: If you could travel in the past, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why? A: Tolstoy, because of his patience.   Q: What id the first book you remember reading, or being read to as Read more […]

Nanditha Ram is an India-born (and raised), New Zealand-based writer of short fiction. She has a background in English Literature and Journalism. She also writes regularly on yoga and wellness. Her blog of six years on the same subject has now become a book manuscript (The Story Behind the Pose: Transforming Consciousness Through Yoga and Read more […]

Numair A Choudhury was born in Bangladesh in 1975. After finishing high school in Dhaka, he was enrolled in Oberlin College Creative Writing Program, from which he graduated in 1997. Shortly thereafter, Numair joined Andrew Motion’s Creative Writing Department in Norwich. Numair has published over a dozen short stories. He also taught college courses, mostly Read more […]