The tiny one-legged man hops around the room, smoke trailing from his pipe. If he sees me, he does not show it. He hops from chair to table, from table to lamp, from lamp to ceiling. He hops upside down on the ceiling. He hops down onto a rose in a vase, and he is […]

At escuela, room 4B always smelled faintly of dry marker pens, old paper and the thin haze of cleaning spray that never quite masked the age of the place. Sunlight slanted through the high windows, striping the worn wooden desks and the faded corkboard displays. The pale blue walls were chipped at the corners where […]

A story about motherhood and loss by Emma Penruddock following a Mother reflecting on her life.

It’s Thursday and I’m in the baby changing facility at Waitrose eating a no-butter flapjack. The air smells like baby wipes and there is a small, bright spotlight that draws out my shadow as I move beneath it. It’s not a bad place to eat in secret while I mentally guess replacement ingredients for butter. […]

Her name was Mrs Martinez, Mrs J. Martinez, and when she said the ‘J’ part, her eyes squinted, just to let you know that when you addressed her, you’d better say it, too. She was my third-grade art teacher. She was chic. With almost every other sentence, she mentioned she was from France, even though […]

Madeleine was born and raised in Blackpool, and currently lives in Manchester. She works in museum exhibitions, and writes short fiction in her spare time. She has been writing stories and poems ever since she was a child.   Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like […]

S. D. Brown is based in Dorset, England. He writes poetry, short stories and novellas. He has had work published in Acclaim, Platform for Prose, The Fortnightly Review, Vine Leaves Press, Litro Publishing, The Orchard Poetry Journal, Eucalyptus Lit. & Eunoia Review.   Q: What is the first book you remember reading or having read […]

John Barrett Lee is a writer from Pembrokeshire, now based in Ho Chi Minh City, where he has lived for many years with his Welsh-Vietnamese family. He is Head of English as an Additional Language at the British International School. He studied Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan, where he was taught by author […]

Teo Eve is a half-British, half-Italian writer and secondary school English teacher with experience teaching abroad. A poet who plays with language, Teo is the author of the experimental poetry collections The Ox House and I Imagine An Image, both published by Penteract Press. Contrasting their abstract poems, Teo’s stories explore and critique contemporary social […]

Originally from Glasgow, Jennifer Harvey now lives in a small coastal town in Denmark. She is the author of three novels and her short fiction has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies. When not writing, she can be found walking with her dog on the beach.   Q: What is the least interesting […]