Teika Marija Smits, "Waterlore"

 

Teika Marija Smits is a UK-based writer and freelance editor. She is the author of the poetry pamphlet Russian Doll (Indigo Dreams Publishing) and the short story collections Umbilical (NewCon Press), which was shortlisted for the 2024 Rubery Book Award, and Waterlore (Black Shuck Books). A fan of all things fae, she is delighted by the fact that Teika means fairy tale in Latvian. Teika is on X/Twitter @MarijaSmits and her website is here.  

About Waterlore
The thirty-fourth in the Black Shuck "Shadows" series of micro collections, Waterlore contains seven dark, fantastical stories on the theme of water – from the depths of the oceans to a public swimming pool – and explores the many facets of romantic love, family life and forgiveness. 

You can read more about Waterlore on the publisher’s website here. Below, you can read a sample from the collection. 

From Waterlore, by Teika Marija Smits

Lady Seaweed
or
Tristresse

Mathey Trewella, why did you come a-calling?

Mathey Trewella. His name is like the salt that clings to my lips: bitter, acrid, dead. I go about my business, watching over my little ones, but he is always here in my mind. Mathey Trewella, gone too soon.

I call to my children but they pay me no heed, so I keep the warning to myself: Kee-kee! Kee-kee! Be careful! Be careful! and I hope that it gives them protection enough from unseen rocks and drowning waves.

I can’t believe how big they’ve grown; that rock that they’re playing on – scrambling onto and diving off – was too far out for them last year. Soon it’ll be too close to home. I have to laugh at the humans who mistook us merfolk for manatees. My children, little waifs, are all bones and agility. And besides, manatees give birth to live young. We merfolk are more like platypuses, laying eggs and then breastfeeding our young.

Those humans tell tales about us mermaids. They cover our breasts with shells and say that we spend our time combing our hair; they believe we’re enamoured of the human form. Yet none of our kind could ever desire a human, with their hairy legs and strange, cold voices – always at odds with Mother Earth who provides for them. My children’s father, my merman, all sinew and strength, is all that I’d ever want.

Mathey Trewella, why did you come a-calling?

Constantine, "Alien Boy"

Congratulations to University of Leicester Creative Writing MA graduate Constantine, who has published a new novel, Alien Boy! 

Constantine achieved a first in his B.A. Creative writing degree in 2017 and achieved equal success when he finished his Master's degree in 2021. He has written four episodes of the CBeebies show Pablo and has written a number of books, the most well-known being The Cats of Charnwood Forest.

About Alien Boy, by Constantine

Alien Boy is the first in several very short volumes designed for reluctant readers. The chapters are short, there is some description, plenty of dialogue and it is written from a first-person point of view. The style of writing fits the age of the character and reminds me of the "What We Did in the Holidays" reports I used to be asked to write at school in the late 80s. The story follows Alen, an 11-year-old orphan with ASD who discovers he is far more important than he could possibly believe.

You can read more about Alien Boy on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a sample from the novel. 

From Alien Boy

After dinner I rushed to my room, closed the door, and took out my watch. I looked at it long and hard. It had come back on, and once again random numbers were showing on the screen.

I put it down and immediately the numbers stopped … you can guess what happened next can’t you? That’s right, I picked it up and the numbers started again but stopped when I put it down.

My mind went back to my talk with Gordon. The watch had flashed when I passed it to him, but was it flashing while he held it? I don’t think it did. Could the watch only work when being touched by me?

This was amazing, I strapped it to my wrist, and it came to life, numbers scrolling across the screen, always in groups of two. After a while, the watch beeped and then the numbers started again. Was there a pattern? I waited till it beeped again and this time I wrote them down. This is what it looked like:

09 06 00 26 15 21 00 23 01 14 20 00 20 15 00 11 14 15 23 00 23 08 15 00 26 15 21 00 01 18 05 27 00 20 08 05 00 17 21 05 19 20 09 15 14 00 20 15 00 01 19 11 00 09 15 00 23 08 15 00 01 13 00 09 

The 09 was flashing, so I underlined it. I thought that it must be important, but what did it mean? What did any of it mean? I looked at the numbers long and hard. And the 00’s stood out. If 0 is nothing, then 00 is also nothing. So, I wrote it again leaving a space where the 00’s were. Now it looked like this.

09 06    26 15 21      23 01 14 20    20 15    11 14 15 23    23 08 15    26 15 21    01 18 05 27    20 08 05    17 21 05 19 20 09 15 14    20 15    01 19 11    09 15    23 08 15    01 13    09

Now I was getting somewhere. The numbers were starting to look like words. Could it really be so simple?

I looked for a 01 and saw there was one near the end next to a 13. Now if 01 was "A" then 13 would be "M" which would make "AM." It seemed to work and so I tried all the other numbers. The 27 caused me some problems, because as you know there are only 26 letters; but then I figured that if 00 could be a space, 27 could be a full stop. Within minutes I had deciphered the message:

"If you want to know who you are the question to ask is 'who am I?'"

What did that mean? I thought about it, but it didn’t make sense. Then I remembered that the "I" was flashing. That was a clue. Who am I? I’m Alen Boiy. Was it the "I" in my surname? What if I took it out? I’m Alen Boy? That didn’t make much more sense. Okay what if I took the "I" and put it somewhere else? Alen I Boy? I Alen Boy? Then it hit me: you probably worked it out ages ago. The "I" went in the middle of my first name.

I whispered the answer out loud because it seemed too mad to stay in my head.

"I’m not Alen Boiy," I whispered. "I’m Alien Boy."

My watch made a beep and a new message scrolled across the screen. In a few minutes I had it deciphered.

"Well done," it said. "We will be in touch."

Kevan Manwaring, "Writing Ecofiction"

Dr Kevan Manwaring is the MA Creative Writing course leader at Arts University Bournemouth. He is the author of The Windsmith Elegy series (Awen), Desiring Dragons: Creativity, Imagination, and the Writer’s Quest (Compass Books), Writing Ecofiction: Navigating the Challenges of Environmental Narrative (Palgrave Macmillan), and editor of Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes (British Library), Ballad Tales: Traditional British Ballads Retold (The History Press), and other anthologies. He has contributed articles to The Bottle Imp, English Review, Revenant and Gothic Nature. He was an academic consultant for BBC 4’s The Secret Life of Books, and is a panellist on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking. He is also a member of the Climate Fiction Writers League. He is currently working on a book for Routledge exploring environmental aspects of Fantasy. 

About Writing Ecofiction: Navigating the Challenges of Environmental Narrative, by Kevan Manwaring
This creative writing textbook introduces students to ecofiction: narrative writing that focuses on the environment. Also known as ‘climate fiction’ or ‘cli-fi,’ an increasing number of short story writers, novelists and pioneers of emerging forms such as interactive fiction are taking up the call to develop their own creative responses to the climate crisis. This guide explores a cross-section of genres and ways of writing about our world, as well as the ethical and technical challenges involved. It offers a discussion of classic and contemporary texts, literary criticism and creative writing exercises. The book covers a broad range of themes and styles of writing, from works that engage with nature and landscape writing to those that take a more activist approach to climate change. With an awareness of the Global South and the subaltern, the framing of the Anthropocene, wilderness and nature writing is challenged. Each chapter offers a new perspective on ecofiction for the creative writer, with reading suggestions and connections to other writers and texts, and writing activities. Designed for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate writing modules on the environment, the book is also suitable for independent writers looking to expand their skillset. It features twenty-one interviews with ecofiction authors including: Ana Filomena Amaral, Austin Aslan, Denise Baden, David Barker, TC Boyle, Lynn Buckle, Adam Connor, Michelle Cook, Julie Carrick Dalton, April Doyle, Anna Holmes, Somto Ihezue, RB Kelly, Gill Lewis, Anne Mordell, Anthony Nanson, Midge Raymond, Manda Scott, Mary Woodbury, John Yunker.

You can read more about Writing Ecofiction on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the book. 

From Writing Ecofiction

The quiet, gentle, sometimes solitary but never lonely act of reading is one of the most radical actions one can take in the modern age. It is self-reflective, meditative even, as one sits in peaceful absorption. 

Socrates told us that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’ The affordances of reading create a space where the examined life can happen – whether through the windows and mirrors of fiction and poetry, a thought-provoking essay or article, the life story of an inspiring figure, a sobering account of a real-life event, or (of course) through the smeuses and refugia of new nature writing. Reading is radical because, in a ‘post truth’ age of information wars, fake news, deep fakes, and the sound and fury of social media, formulating one’s own opinion against the din of the herd, and honing critical thinking skills, is a quiet act of defiance, and perhaps the only conscionable choice for anyone with a lively, enquiring intelligence and a robust personal integrity. 

Yet, beyond this, the act of reading is inherently ecological for a number of reasons. In terms of materiality, reading a printed book (at least one created with wood pulp from a sustainable source, as most books are these days thanks to the Forest Stewardship Council) is an activity with a low carbon footprint, unless you are doing it while cruising on your private jet or aboard a luxury yacht – which 99% of us won’t be doing. For a brief while you are no longer consuming. Of course, the purchase of a book requires partaking in the capitalist system, unless it was gifted, shoplifted, or recycled – but by purchasing from book sites such as Hive (which donates some of the transaction to a local independent bookstore of your choice), or by browsing via Ecosia (which plants a tree for each search), you can have a positive impact on your local community and wider environment. Reading on an electronic device is a different matter – in terms of the carbon footprint of a phone, tablet, laptop, or e-reader – but again these devices can be second-hand, borrowed, or on loan from a library. 

Digital poverty is rarely discussed, and many people assume everyone has access to such tools, and to the internet – but this is a ‘First World’ assumption. And it also assumes universal digital literacy. Yet even amongst those who are digital native – or digital adopters i.e. Boomers, Generation X, etc – there are a growing number of people who choose to go analogue, e.g. by reading a printed book, rather than a pdf on a connected device. This offline culture is manifesting in such diverse cultural initiatives as: Independent Record Store Day and its promotion of vinyl records, immersive theatre experiences, the surge in table-top roleplaying games, re-enactment societies, Live Action Role Playing and cosplay, and the rise in popularity of zines and analogue publishers such as Analog Sea, who publish beautiful hardcover anthologies and only distribute through the ecosystem of independent bookshops. 

Jonathan Simmons, the publisher of Analog Sea advocates in his editorial vision ‘the human right to disconnect.’ He wishes to celebrate the works created by the spaciousness that affords ‘that vital stretch of time when distraction fades and deep wells of thought and feeling emerges.’ Simmons’ desire to ‘maintain a contemplative life in the digital age’ is one by shared by many, even, encouragingly, an increasing number of young people who choose to hold analogue meetups and own non-smart phones. 

Reading is ecological in phenomenological ways too – our breathing slows, our posture relaxes, our hands quietly turn the rustling leaves of the pages, our fingers feeling the fibre of the paper; noses picking up the faint scent of ink, the musty smell of an old binding or the fresh aroma of a new book, and, for a while, we become hyper-focused on the flesh of language itself. Then, pausing perhaps at the end of a section or chapter, we look up and our immediate environment is enhanced by this heightened perception – be it in a civic park, by a river, on a beach, or in a public library, café, or station. We may notice things we didn’t before. If we have been reading what is called ‘ecofiction,’ these may be things to do with our natural environment, our connection, and impact. Birdsong may seem sharper and sweeter, the colours of flowers brighter, the shapes, textures and patterns of trees more fascinating. We may notice ‘weeds’ in the cracks of the pavement, mosses on the wall of an old building or beneath a public drinking fountain, a bird of prey nesting in the heights of the skyline, an urban fox scavenging amongst the bins, or even the behaviour of the human animal: its feeding and mating habits, territorial displays, and nesting instincts. 

Reading is not only a cognitive act, but also a sensory, embodied act. We are using the senses that have evolved through millions of years to enable us to interact with our environment and each other. Senses that connect us to the natural world, to our animal self. With our remarkably developed brains we can decode the forest of text and find meaning within it, in the way that any animal adapted to its environment can interpret a multitude of complex signs and signals (as the latest scientific research into biosemiotics suggests). Ursula K. Le Guin emphasises this extraordinary ability: ‘The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.’ 

Reading may seem to some to be an indulgence, a distraction from the multiple challenges we face, but incrementally I believe it does make a difference. If people read (and thus contemplated) more and consumed less, stayed still and peaceful for a longer, cultivated skills of reflection and discernment, immersed themselves in paradigms other than their own, walking in another person’s moccasins through the lens of fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction, then I think the world would be better place. It doesn’t replace all the things we still need to do to counter the Climate Crisis and other attendant issues, but it can equip us to deal with them better – not least through the benefits to our wellbeing, resilience, and emotional and intellectual capacity that the act of reading gives us. The Japanese concept of Shinrin-yoku or ‘forest bathing’ has gained attention in recent years, but I argue that ‘book bathing’ has similar benefits. Spend some time wandering in the wood of words, and then experience the world with refreshed perception and a greater appreciation of its miraculous actuality.

Heidi Slettedahl, "Mo(u)rning Rituals"

 

Heidi Slettedahl is an academic and a US-UK dual national who goes by a slightly different name professionally. In her other life, she is President of SUNY Brockport. She lives in western New York with her husband Allan Macpherson and their two unruly Springer Spaniels, Tilly and Rosie. Her most unusual talent is her ability to ride a unicycle. She does less of that now that she is over 50. Her website is here. 

About Mo(u)rning Rituals, by Heidi Slettedahl
This collection of poetry explores the mourning that comes with infertility and other life changes while celebrating and uplifting the opportunities for love. Poems about imagined motherhood and family loss sit alongside poems that explore relationships that thrive across space, outlining the continuum we traverse as we choose to accept others into our lives.

You can read more about Mo(u)rning Rituals on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Mo(u)rning Rituals

My Children

I never got to teach my children anything.
A mass of cells that multiplied
And then did not
No long division
No make believe
 
Except those two weeks, waiting.
 
Each time was harder
And every time I knew.
 

Venice
 
I rarely talk about my babies
Eight in all,
The loss too large for casual conversation.
 
Eight that I am sure of.
Who wants to know of clinics and injections, and odds
you’d never bet on
Until you do.
 
The number might be nine, if I include
The one who left me in Venice
With blood and chills.
 
At least I think he did, if he was there at all.
So hard to know for sure.
 
My friends love Venice,
Return to it year on year.
 
I prefer Verona.
A smaller city, prettier, less crowded.
 
Fewer memories of loss. 

Abi Curtis, "The Headland"

 

Abi Curtis is Professor of Creative Writing at York St John University. She is the author of two poetry collections, Unexpected Weather (Salt, 2009) and The Glass Delusion (Salt, 2013) and a climate change novel Water & Glass (Cloud Lodge, 2017). She also edited Blood & Cord: Writers on Early Parenthood (Emma Press, 2023) and is currently working on a co-authored guide to Speculative Fiction. She has eclectic interests and has written and presented on subjects from motherhood to bees; ancient churches to the uncanny; squid to elegy and enjoys collaborating with artists and musicians. 

About The Headland
A novel about the dark gifts of grief, what it means to belong, and the possibility that time and space may not be what we think they are.

It is the morning following a devastating hurricane on England's south coast, and local painter Dolores is walking the shingle beach of the Headland. She spots something unusual lurking in a piece of driftwood - a color, a creature, perhaps something fostered by the twin forces of storm and atomic fallout. It's all anyone has been talking about, after all, just months after Chernobyl and in the shadow of the local nuclear power station.

Decades later, her son Morgan returns to the Headland to arrange for Dolores' funeral. The power station is about to be decommissioned, and the bleak landscape is best known now as a landing point for desperate immigrants from across the Channel. Morgan's girlfriend is pregnant - an unexpected revelation that he is not at all sure about - and he is especially keen to discover what he can from his mother's unusual cottage, especially about his father, whom he has never known. He uncovers the diary his mother wrote following the hurricane. It tells a story about Dolores and the strange being she discovers on the beach - a story which is both enthralling and heartrending. As he reads the journal, Morgan's own experiences of the Headland become increasingly inexplicable. The journal challenges Morgan's ideas about love and grief, parenthood and belonging, and the very fabric of time. As he unravels the mysteries of his mother's past, he must come to terms with his own origins and face the growing violence from those who would threaten the peace of the Headland.

You can read more about The Headland on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From The Headland, by Abi Curtis
I went to the library yesterday after work, looking for a better encyclopaedia than the old one I have here, to try to work out if there are any creatures like her anywhere. When I looked, I saw that Violet has the characteristics of a Humboldt squid, with its ability to change colour, flashing brightly in the sea depending on its moods. But then, she also has the proboscis of a moth, who uses it to taste the air. But she doesn’t have wings. The golden mole has iridescent fur, but it is not invisible. There are creatures that like very hot conditions, like camels, or weird bacteria called water bears, which live off thermal vents. These can also revert to a state of agelessness and defy the passage of time. Then, I looked at plant life. The violet flower: so many different species, some thriving where there is barely any soil. Her creeping legs which shift in and away from my perception as they move belong to nothing that I can identify. Only deep-sea creatures seem to possess this quality of transparency, the filaments of their nervous systems visible beneath their jelly-like skin. But these would be like deflated balloons outside of the water, and Violet has thrived on land for weeks now. I looked at insects, mammals, birds, cephalopods. Octopuses and squids have limbs that can perceive independently. Bees are especially attuned to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, which humans cannot see, and so attracted by white and purple flowers. They communicate by vibration and strong smell, and movement. The bookworm, which is really a beetle, eats mould, glue and the bindings of books, only incidentally devouring the paper. Moths do that too. Some butterflies like decaying matter and live near graves …

I made a list of notes like a student cramming for a weird exam. Then, I looked at another section of the library. Next to the Science Fiction were titles like Top Secret and The Many Types of Luminous Sky Phenomena, Alien Life, and We are not Alone: Alien Abduction Cases. Some had facsimile documents from places like the FBI with chunks redacted in black ink, alien autopsy photos and pilot accounts of disc- or orb-like vessels. Sketches from abduction ‘victims’ of thin grey men with big black screen eyes. If Violet is not of this world, she is not this kind of alien.

Run Your Tongue: Spoken Word Night

By Rob Reeves

My friend Bethany Patience started Run Your Tongue in 2012 in Kettering, but it was rather short-lived after we both moved away. I then spent six months in Paris, where I began performing at a spoken word night. When I returned home, I missed performing regularly and decided to start RYT back up in Kettering, following a similar format to the night in France. We moved to the Three Cocks Inn, which was home to us for over five years. We had some great nights there with headliners such as Atilla the Stockbroker, Jess Green and Jonah Matranga.  

During the lockdowns of 2020, I began to hold Run Your Tongue online, which allowed me to connect with poets from all over the world. When we were able to have live events again, I asked Rosa Fernandez to become my co-host, and we moved to an art gallery in Leicester for a year before settling at our current home at Watson’s Cocktail Bar on Granby Street, Leicester. We’ve welcomed a couple of poets we met during the online Zoom days to headline in real life: Jeff Cottrill all the way from Canada and Clive Oseman all the way from Swindon.

The Leicester poetry scene is really thriving, and there are some great other nights, each with its own flavour. Word! is the most well-known and longest-running, Some-Antics is a really fun and popular night, and Get Mouthy is a great new night at the Big Difference. In fact, last month, Word! invited a host from each of the other nights to headline at their event. The whole scene is really supportive and collaborative. We try to make sure our events don’t clash, and we always try to support each other’s events when we can.  

We try to make RYT welcoming and don’t take ourselves too seriously, which I hope helps people feel at ease. I know how hard it is to get up and perform – I used to be absolutely terrified of public speaking and would avoid it at all costs, so I know that just getting up on stage is a win. I always say that anything goes at our events as long as it involves words. While most performers read and perform poetry, we also welcome comedians, singer-songwriters and storytellers. It’s a great place to try out new material to a welcoming crowd.

I always wanted to keep RYT accessible to all, so it’s always been pay-as-you-feel. However, we still believe in paying our headliners, especially if they have come from further afield. Everything we take on the door goes to them, and we also hold the world-famous Rob’s Raffle in the hope of raising a little more. Sometimes it’s difficult to balance paying our headliners with making the night accessible to everyone, but we somehow have made it work for over a decade.

Our events are usually on the first Thursday of the month, but we are holding them bi-monthly until the end of the year. We have an extra event in October with Cathi Rae, and there might even be a special event in the summer.  

The night has taken many forms over the years in various venues, and even when it takes a break for a while, it always returns. I’m really proud of the night, and I know that as long as people keep coming down, I’ll keep putting it on.   

If you’d like to stay updated with events, please follow our Instagram and Facebook pages. Our next event is with Ciarán Hodgers on Thursday, July 4th. 

About the author
Rob Reeves is a poet and musician based in Leicester. Rob started writing poetry in 2012 while taking his MA in English at the University of Leicester, where he is now studying for his PhD in Creative Writing.

Cathi Rae, "Just This Side of Seaworthy and Other Poems" and "Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Poems"

Congratulations to UoL PhD Creative Writing student Cathi Rae, who has just published two new poetry pamphlets!

Cathi Rae is a poet, spoken word artist and educator. She is currently in the final stages of a practice led/creative PhD at the University of Leicester, where she was also a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing. She has performed throughout the UK, including readings at Womad Festival, The Houses of Commons, Chiltern Arts Festival and many spoken word and poetry events up and down the M1 and M6. She has just published two new pamphlets of poetry with Two Pigeons Press: Just This Side of Seaworthy and Other Poems, and Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Poems. You can read about these two new collections and a sample poem from each below.  

About Just This Side of Seaworthy and Other Poems, by Cathi Rae
Just This Side of Seaworthy and Other Poems is a pamphlet collection which explores ageing, ageism and how older people navigate the world. It challenges the ageist notions that older people have less validity or become invisible.

From Just This Side of Seaworthy and Other Poems

Just this side of seaworthy

I could be  you
another older woman    our bodies bearing 
one carefully cherished child

just the one
no time to make another
no time to try again

I was akin to you     almost kin to you
recognising this stony skerry
where you stand                washed up
I too have swum these currents

tides that trick and tease
entice you on towards the shore

I feel your           unsteady      steps
across a beach
a beach in name alone
black blasted rock ground down to grey

 
somehow 
I avoided this      this destination    this depression
with frantic paddling     bailing out
keeping my head above the water
watching you and those like you
who submerged beneath the sea 
and emerging
found themselves      sea changed

the boat    the tides    the landing
repeat    repeat        repeat
a life on endless loop
your coracle
just this side of seaworthy
crafted from a faded photograph

gives up the ghost and floats in-land
oars that drop and drift away


your gasping    grasping breath 
presence of pain    still presence of a sort
knocked backwards   you attempt to stand again

fingers clutch at the last remaining 
half remaining    almost-memory  of     croft  wall
grip slipping on moss slick stone
peering out to sea     myopic     in mist that never lifts
cataract-vision 

and on this chain that reaches back
to meet the mainland
I’m standing on another island
larger     the trees a little taller 
hints of green and growth
holding on
hoping     knowing    
that this must pass.

About Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Poems, by Cathi Rae
Rock, Scissors, Paper and Other Poems is a taster selection from my PhD work, a collection of poems based on conversations and interviews with individuals who shared their lived experience with me.

From Rock, Scissors, Paper and Other Poems

Brick Dust

You tell me about the brick fields 

where red dust earth and red brick dust become impossible to separate 

and paint the little boys in red dust too 

little boys who work for food 

and you tell me what happens to little boys who work for food 

and now I can’t unknow that 

You tell me about the onion factory 

where you peeled skins and were in turn 

unpeeled yourself 

and as we talk I’m crying onion tears 

and I try to keep the sobs inside and silent 

as you too must have done when you were small 

You tell me about the coming here 

boys packed into room too tight 

to house so many bodies 

you sent that hard-earnt money home 

planned triumphant returns full pockets and a sharp new suit 

until one day home was here but never truly here and no longer there 

You tell me about marriage love and madness 

times when you were racked with shame 

but didn’t have the words to name the fears in any language 

but Djiin or ghost seems closest 

the boy you used to be 

still haunts this broken self 

You tell me about love 

your wife become a tree in whose shade you hide 

shelter from a burning sun and later still the British rain 

your children never hungry safe you say and loved 

their lives a world away 

from red dust brick dust onion peeled boys