A. S. Andrejevic, "Under the Same Moon"

 

A. S. Andrejevic is a Serbian-British writer whose work has appeared in The Lampeter Review, Storgy, The Wrong Quarterly, Scrutiny Journal, The Dawntreader, Scary Mommy, Literary Mama, Brain, Child, and other magazines. Her plays have been longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize, shortlisted by Bristol Old Vic, and supported by Arts Council England. She’s represented by Lorella Belli Literary Agency, and her debut novel, Under the Same Moon, is due out with APS Books in September 2025. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire, where she encourages her students to think big, write with honesty, and stay true to their voice.

About Under the Same Moon, by A. S. Andrejevic
Under the Same Moon is a suspenseful story about Serbian emigrants in London during the 1990s wars, and how their past continues to haunt them, even decades later.

Jelena has built a very English life - now known as Helen, she relishes her elegant home in north London, her doting husband and two children, and the complete erasure of the country she once fled. But when a man she hasn’t seen in sixteen years shows up at her door, everything she’s built begins to unravel. 

As old loyalties resurface and buried memories threaten to destroy her carefully constructed world, Jelena must finally face the truth about what happened all those years ago. Did she betray the love of her life - or save herself from a dangerous man?

Told across two timelines and set in London and Belgrade, the novel weaves together the elegant neighbourhoods of West Hampstead, Soho’s underground clubs, and the shattered streets of 1990s Serbia and Kosovo. It’s a story of memory, identity, and the difficult choices we make to survive - and who we become as a result.

From Under the Same Moon

"You won't invite me to come in?" Mladen says in Serbian.  

"Come in?" she repeats pointlessly, as if there is anything else he could be talking about. To come in. Into her home. 

It feels odd to be speaking in her old language, probably the first time it's ever been spoken on this road. You can overhear it sometimes in Shepherd's Bush or the distant boroughs of East London, where Serbian stores smell of smoked ham and restaurants serve veal soup and pretend cheese-pie (because you just can't get cheese sour enough to pass for Serbian). But everyone speaks English here. 

She manages to focus back on the figure standing in front of her. "You mean, now?"  

He just keeps looking at her, his face still, undisturbed by the rain sliding into a trickle around his square chin. The garden is caught in a side wind and one of the flowerpots tumbles off its stand with a crash. 

"Unless I'm not welcome," he says.  

"Of course you are," she says and glances back over her shoulder. "The only thing is …" She's hoping for a sudden noise, something to make her family's presence obvious, off-putting.  

"U cemu je stvar, Jelena?" What's the thing? 

She scrambles for an answer. "My children are in bed," she says. "And my husband is working. I mean – working in his office. If I'd known you were coming –"   

"I don't have your number." 

"I could give it to you now?" She's never been a good liar, although she did manage that one time when it counted, in the car park at Sofia airport. "I'm free tomorrow. I could buy you lunch." 

"Now is better," Mladen says and makes a small step towards her. She doesn't mean to move but somehow she yields, and in the next instant he's inside.  

Afterwards, she'll agonise over this: would he have left them alone if she'd stood her ground?  

Kristina Adams, "Revenge of the Redhead"

Kristina Adams is the author of 20 novels, 3 books for writers, 1 poetry collection, and too many blog posts to count. She publishes ghost stories as K.C.Adams. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dog or inflicting cooking experiments on her boyfriend. Her website is here. 

About Revenge of the Redhead
In her debut poetry collection, bestselling author Kristina Adams channels female rage. Anger, hatred, envy – all those things society tells women they shouldn’t feel, let alone express, are explored in this confessional collection. It takes you on a journey from heartbreak to friendship breakups to workplace bullying, ending on true love and hope for the future. Whether you’re in a good mood, a bad mood, or somewhere in between, Revenge of the Redhead has a poem for you. You can read more about Revenge of the Redhead here. Below, you can read two poems from the collection.

From Revenge of the Redhead, by Kristina Adams

Enough.

I split myself in two
in the hopes of pleasing you
But it doesn’t matter what I do
I’ll never be good enough
for you.


Rocking Chairs

You said we’d be old ladies in our rocking chairs
But how can we be when you were never there?
Friendship is more than just fair weather
I want a friend who’s here forever
not someone who’s in love with spring
but can’t handle the bad weather winter brings

You left the rocking chair beside me empty
When you decided you’d had enough of me
But you were ‘just’ a friend.
And no one talks about how when friendship ends
it hurts just as much, if not more
sitting beside that open door.

Karuna Mistry and Pratibha Savani, "Sojourn"

Karuna Mistry is a British writer of Indian ethnicity. Born and raised in Leicester, he has published over 60 individual poems in more than 40 anthologies over his first two years of identifying as a poet, including some paid work. Karuna’s creative writing interests are thoughtful and broad, covering life, music, science fiction and spirituality – he has also orated his poetry at public events. As well as poetry, drawing and blogging, his creativity includes magazine editorship, photography and design. Karuna has co-authored and co-illustrates his debut poetry book with his already-published sister, Pratibha Savani, entitled Sojourn: Transcending Seasons. Karuna works at the University of Leicester. Facebook / Instagram: @karunamistrypoetry. His website is here. 

About Sojourn: Transcending Seasons, by Karuna Mistry and Pratibha Savani
Sojourn: Transcending Seasons explores the journey of the soul through loss, as expressed by brother and sister, Karuna Mistry and Pratibha Savani. Containing over 90 poems – including prose, rhyme and visual – the creative siblings also include their own artwork. Guest poets Jill Sharon Kimmelman, Sarfraz Ahmed, and Zaneta Varnado Johns offer insights from their own faith traditions. Uniquely layered, Sojourn is an original read and a gift to the world.

You can read more about Sojourn here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Sojourn: Transcending Seasons

Pascale Petit, "My Hummingbird Father"

 

Pascale Petit, photo by Derrick Kakembo

Pascale Petit was born in Paris, grew up in France and Wales and lives in Cornwall. She is of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. Her eighth poetry collection, Tiger Girl, from Bloodaxe in 2020, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and for Wales Book of the Year. A poem from the book won the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize. Her seventh poetry collection Mama Amazonica, published by Bloodaxe in 2017, won the inaugural Laurel Prize in 2020, won the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2018, was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize, and was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art, she spent the first part of her life as a visual artist. My Hummingbird Father is her first novel, published by Salt in 2024. Her website is here. 

About My Hummingbird Father
When artist Dominique receives a letter from her dying father, a reckoning with repressed memories and a pull for romantic and familial love sends shock waves through her life, as she journeys to Paris to face the places and events of her early years.

Balanced with visits to the Venezuelan Amazon, where Dominique explores a spiritual and loving longing (meeting a young guide, Juan), a raw and tender unfolding of this love story is a parallel to the uncovering of the shocking truth of Dominique’s birth, and her parents’ relationship.

Pascale Petit’s My Hummingbird Father is a beautifully lyrical debut novel in dialogue with Pascale’s Ondaatje and Laurel Prize-winning poetry collection, Mama Amazonica.

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

From My Hummingbird Father, by Pascale Petit
The letter trembles in Dominique’s hand as if she’s holding Angel Falls – a kilometre-long cataract shrunk to the size of a page. She folds the letter and it’s like trying to hold an archangel’s wing in her palm. She unfolds it and it fills the room. She’s creased it so many times that one line of Father’s address is faint. What if her tears blur his phone number? 

Now she’s dressing, no time for breakfast. She’s running for the tube to the French Consulate, which closes for emergencies at noon. They must renew her passport; she’ll make them do it. 

Now she has her passport and she’s running back home, to the phone, to let him know she’s coming. 

A week ago, she dreamt of him: she was back in Venezuela, at the base of Angel Falls. His face appeared titanic in the tumbling comets. She looked into the vapour as his face dissolved and reformed. First, she saw the lace of a wedding-veil, shreds of skin behind a veil, then his face turned towards her, and she saw her father. 

Dominique dials the number and listens to his phone ringing, and in the pause as she waits for him to answer there is this sound – far away and very near, as if she’s also got the Amazon on the line. A series of low grunts inside her ear, then an icy roar – deeper and longer than a jaguar’s. Howler monkeys swing through the space between them while time drops in light-year-long arrows. And she can wait. She has already waited thirty years. She is not afraid. Then a voice – French, formal, familiar, from the slash-and-burn past: 

‘I have thought of you every day,’ he says. It’s in French, so she has to check she’s heard right. He repeats, ‘I have thought of you every day, chérie.’ 

Dominique tries to absorb this word as he asks, ‘What time will you arrive?’ 

‘I’m catching the Eurostar tomorrow at ten,’ she says.

‘Can’t you come this evening?’ he asks.

‘I have to pack!’ she explains. And she has to tint her hair and wash and dry her best clothes. And there is a mask she has to conjure, to hide her hunting-face. 

Caroline Bath, "The Life We Make"

Caroline Bath’s first novel was published by Valley Press in December 2023. She also writes poetry, and in 1999 was awarded an MA in Poetry with distinction from Huddersfield University for her thesis on Irish poetry with a particular focus on Louis MacNeice. She has a professional background as a teacher and university lecturer in Education and Early Childhood and is the author of several academic journal articles which deal with the ethics of care and young children’s participation. She is particularly interested in family issues and in 2015 she hosted a blog about the life of her elderly father and the care he received at the end of his life. You can see it here. She currently hosts a blog which discusses the issues raised by and about her novel. You can see it here. 

About The Life We Make, by Caroline Bath
Against a backdrop which is full of convincing and vivid period detail, The Life We Make features a man haunted by desertion, as well as several strong and complex women characters, as seen from a feminist perspective. Because it revolves around the question of why generations unwittingly follow similar paths, the characters are multi-layered and often introspective as events play out and they attempt to build and rebuild their lives. 

The Life We Make is essentially the story of Arthur and Agnes, a grocer and milliner, who marry somewhat in haste, following the emigration of Arthur’s family to Canada. They go through the motions of married life but often misunderstand each other. When Arthur is conscripted, the rupture burns a hole in him, and upon return from the war, despite his best intentions to be a good husband and father, he gambles and slides into mounting debts.

Whilst Arthur struggles with unrequited loss and money problems, Agnes discovers an innate capacity to be independent, so that when Arthur moves the family to Bournemouth, she returns home to rebuild her own life. The marriage limps on, despite their changing roles, but when another of Arthur’s jobs, ends in unemployment, he reaches the limits of financial and emotional humiliation and leaves his home and family for good.

In the final part of the novel, the focus of the story switches to 1941 and onto their youngest daughter, Eva, now 18, who has fallen for Cambridge scholar, David. She immerses herself in a secretarial job in London and witnesses the drama of the blitz, but the war triggers more despair over her father’s disappearance, and she finally confronts her mother and elder sister about what happened to him. As she learns more about her parents’ marriage, she decides to reject David’s proposal and find her father - but also to continue in her mother’s independent footsteps and build a career for herself.

You can read more about The Life We Make on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel's "Prologue." 

From The Life We Make
Whenever I feel worried like this, I make a cave with my covers and stay there for a few minutes. The air is warm, sounds are muffled, and the dark keeps me safe. People don’t realise that nine-year-olds get worried, but I’ve been worried for as long as I can remember – and I remember a lot – not quite being a baby, but I remember being small and seeing grown-up legs coming and going, then, suddenly, strange faces looming at me when I was picked up. It was scary at first, but Daddy was there, holding me and I knew his face. It had creases going in different directions which gathered around his wide mouth when he smiled at me. Most of his front teeth were white, but I could always see a blackened tooth at the back when he opened his mouth, pretending that he was surprised to see me. Bunny, where have you been hiding? he would say, his whole face a smile, and his mouth open – I always giggled which made him clutch me tighter. Then it was good to see faces, not legs – and giggling at the right time meant that other faces crowded in behind his, and I would bathe in a sea of smiles. I could bring happiness to the world, so long as he was there to lift me up. 

I’m too big for him to pick me up now, he tells me, but at least he’s here again. There have been times when he wasn’t here, and Mummy wouldn’t say his name. Helen would tell me that he was coming back when his job finished, so I learnt to wait. Then, after I waited, he would come back and make me happy again, and I’d go with him to buy cigarettes, as if he’d never been away. Mummy was furious, but I was relieved that he’d found us because I wasn’t sure that he knew where we lived after we left the flat with the hiss of the sea. I wondered if I’d made up that place, but when he came back, he told me about it, and it became real again – as he did. His face had a few more creases and his hair started further back than I expected, but his teeth were the same. 

When Daddy came back that last time, that was when I started to grow fast, and my worries got bigger. Everyone kept saying how much I’d grown, which was embarrassing. So, I would sink into my knees and avoid people’s eyes – at least the eyes of the people I didn’t want to meet which was, at that point, most people. Now, I’m better at looking them in the eye. He taught me that people back off if you look straight back at them. It doesn’t make sense, but he was right – you look up, and they leave you alone. It’s like magic. 

Jenna Clake, "Disturbance"

 

Jenna Clake, photo by Jamie Logue

Jenna Clake’s debut collection of poetry, Fortune Cookie, won the Melita Hume prize in 2016, and was published in 2017 by Eyewear. It received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2018 and was shortlisted for a Somerset Maugham Award in the same year. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Rebecca Swift Women Poets' Prize. Her poetry criticism has appeared in Poetry London, The Poetry School, and The Poetry Review. Her second collection Museum of Ice Cream was published by Bloodaxe and featured as one of The Telegraph's best new poetry books in 2021. Her debut novel is Disturbance, published by Trapeze in 2023. She lectures in Creative Writing at Teesside University.

About Disturbance

As the sun sets on a feverishly hot July evening, a young woman spies on her teenage neighbour, transfixed by what looks like an occult ritual intended to banish an ex-boyfriend. Alone in a new town and desperate to expel the claustrophobic memories of her own ex that have followed, the narrator decides to try to hex herself free from her past.

She falls in with the neighbour and her witchy friend, exploring nascent supernatural powers as the boundaries of reality shift in and out of focus. But when the creaks and hums of her apartment escalate into something more violent, she realizes that she may have brought her boyfriend's presence - whether psychological or paranormal - back to haunt her.

With astonishing emotional depth and clarity, Disturbance explores the fallout of abuse. Propulsive and wry, this razor-sharp debut twists witchcraft and horror into a powerful narrative of one woman's struggle to return to herself. This lyrical novel explores all the ways that relationships and trauma can haunt our lives, and the lingering physical and psychological effects of abuse. 

From Disturbance, by Jenna Clake

The girl rolled the stone to Chelsea, and the ritual began. The evening’s heat was suddenly inflamed, as though it had been summoned; there was a smell of rain, almost sulphuric and bitter. Chelsea leaned forward and cupped the stone in her hand. The girls fell silent, and the smell of rot wafted past me, as though something had crawled to die under my floorboards. My stomach turned, and I held my breath. My fingers tingled, like I’d leant on my hand for too long. 

Chelsea took the stone to her cheek, and started rolling it over her face. The other girl watched her closely, moving her lips rapidly, as if chanting. Chelsea rolled the stone over her face several times, slowly at first, and then with more momentum every time she reached her forehead. Through the darkness, the moon cast white light onto Chelsea and her friend, like it was coming through a magnifying glass. The building had been quiet since the girl had turned off her music. Even the fridge had stopped whining. The road had been empty from the moment Chelsea’s friend had arrived. It was as if they and I were the only people in the world; they had cast a spell and everyone else had been put into a trance.

Chelsea returned the stone to her palm. She looked at it for a while, communing with it. The rotten smell passed, and something more pleasant was summoned, a scent unseasonably springlike: fresh earth, crocuses, daubs of early daisies, the first day it feels safe to sit on grass. Chelsea dug into the ground with her bare hands, and pushed the stone into the soil, and then replaced the grass on top. A chill ran over my arms, the heat unexpectedly broken, as though a breeze had swept through the flat.

The girls tilted their heads upwards to look at the moon, absorbing its light, so their outlines appeared sharper, as if they’d been sculpted. They might have spoken again – their lips moved quickly, not quite in sync. Then, as they dropped their heads, sound flooded back: a siren blared at the end of the road; the Walkers began to tune their guitars; the front gate squeaked; a car tore down the street; my fridge was now louder than before, and building to a screech. The noise echoed around my bedroom, like something calling from far away. I stayed where I was, wondering if the girls would hear it, and know that I’d been watching them. I felt both inside and outside my body, like I had copied myself and pasted a version slightly over my outline.

The girls shuffled forward on their knees to hug each other. As they held on, the shriek from the fridge slowed, and returned to normal. I swallowed, noticing my mouth was dry. When they finally broke apart, Chelsea was smiling. She looked at peace, like every thought had been drained out of her. I wanted to be down there with them, where that feeling – that magic – was possible.

Victoria MacKenzie, "For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain"

Victoria MacKenzie is a fiction writer and poet based in Scotland. Her debut novel, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain (Bloomsbury, 2023), explores the lives of the medieval mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. She has won a number of writing prizes including a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and the Emerging Writer Award from Moniack Mhor, and has held writing residencies in Scotland, Finland and Australia. Her second novel, Brantwood, about the Victorian art critic John Ruskin, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025. Her website is here. 

About For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain is a novel based on the lives of two real women, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Both women have visions of Christ, but to claim direct communication with God is heresy – and the punishment for heresy is to be burnt alive. Using intertwined first-person narratives, Julian and Margery tell the stories of their lives. Margery is a traumatised mother of fourteen, full of shame about sex and childbirth, and hounded by the church for talking about her visions. Julian is an anchoress – haunted by grief, she has lived for twenty-three years in a single room. She has told no one of her visions, but she has written them down in secret. Her book, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, is the first book in English by a woman.

The novel culminates in a meeting between the two women at the window of Julian’s anchoress cell, where they confide their deepest fears. Margery is inspired to return home and dictate the story of her own life: The Book of Margery Kempe is the first known autobiography in English. For Thy Great Pain is a novel about grief, motherhood and grace, and it’s also the story of the beginning of women’s writing.

You can read a review of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain on Everybody's Reviewing here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain, by Victoria MacKenzie

JULIAN

Those early days, weeks, months, years of being in my cell – I am glad I will not live through them again. Though I knew that God would send me trials and tribulations, I did not predict the form that these would take. 

I had thought I was ready for the life of an anchoress. I had wanted to prolong each moment of my life, to get closer to experiencing time as God experiences it: not the instantly dissolving moment, but something larger and more encompassing. A stillness that doesn’t pass as soon as you think yourself into it.

I’d thought I would live as slowly as moss in my stone cell. I’d thought I would step out of my life as soon as I stepped into the cell. But I was still me. Nothing had changed. I was myself, with all my usual racing thoughts and yearnings and memories and foolishness.

Nothing can prepare you for spending the rest of your life in a single room. Never to be touched by another human being. Never to run. Never to feel the rain on your face. Never to walk in the garden and see flowers unfolding their colours and scents. 

I had died to the world, died to my old life, but I was not dead. 

Sara brought me food and firewood, but in those early days we did not know each other. She was careful to follow Master Thomas’ orders not to distract me with what he called ‘women’s chatter’. She treated me like a holy saint, whispering ‘Mother Julian, I have your supper.’ I could almost hear her curtseying on the other side of the curtain. 

How I yearned for women’s chatter.

Laura McKee, "Take Care of Your Hooves Darling"

 

Laura McKee’s poems have been published widely including in The Rialto, Stand Magazine, Under the Radar, The North, Prole, Butcher’s Dog, The Interpreter’s House, Crannog, The Poetry Review. Online publications include the recent first issue of Propel Magazine edited by Mary Jean Chan, Ink Sweat and Tears, And Other Poems. Anthologised work appears in Mildly Erotic Verse (The Emma Press), and The Result Is What You See Today (Smith|Doorstop). She is currently in the second year of an MA in Writing Poetry with The Poetry School and Newcastle University.

About Take Care of Your Hooves Darling

Laura McKee's first pamphlet Take Care of Your Hooves Darling is published by Against the Grain Press, and examines, in part, issues of identity in terms of sexuality, gender, class background, mental and physical health. It includes biscuits, and has been recommended by Andrew McMillan.

You can read more about Take Care of Your Hooves Darling on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Take Care of Your Hooves Darling

good morning

today’s plan is this that
I want to lift up
one of those metal plates
on the pavement that have
names on them like Tom
Selleck and climb in
and slip down into some
pipe or other that leads
to a sewer and hold
my nose until I get
to the river until I
get in the sea and no-one
will have to pretend
to listen to me except
starfish and where are their

ears

Walls

It was hard to get through to you
and later I didn’t answer
the door or the phone
We were each other’s brick wall
with the writing on it
Like that wall where someone
well Dave I suppose
has written Dave
above Jesus no name higher
I look up to you now
and want to talk
You always told me
rise above, rise above it all
have some sort of loftiness
but holy Mary mother of god
mortal Daphne mother of me
loneliness is harder than walls

Joy Pearson, "Untangling the Webs"

 

Joy Pearson lives in Cheshire and has written scripts, serious poetry, amusing verse and her autobiography. A fund-raiser for several animal charities, she has, over the years, worked with families under stress, Shelter campaign for the homeless, and for Esther Rantzen's Silver Line. An adoptee, having found her roots, she helps others voluntarily to find theirs. She is working on her second novel, the follow up to Untangling the Webs (Book Guild, 2018).

About Untangling the Webs, by Joy Pearson

As an imaginative observant child, my confidence to write had been knocked by my adoptive mother, who threw my poems and short stories into the fire, informing me I was useless and so were they and I would never amount to anything. From that time onwards, I wrote in secret, becoming a vigilant observer of both people and atmospheres.

In 2008, I began, with experience gained from this, to write my first novel, Untangling the Webs. I had a vague idea of who my characters might be, but no idea who they would morph into. I wanted to convey parallels in people’s lives, despite different backgrounds. Knowing how much the support of a close friend can bring to one’s life and vice versa, the men and women aid each other in solving stressful entanglements in their lives. Expect the unexpected in this psychological relationship thriller. The reader, as an invisible and privileged guest, is drawn into tangled lives as characters overcome conflicts, emotional shocks, treachery, guilt, serendipitous discoveries, and grief. 

Below, you can read two short excerpts from the novel. 

From Untangling the Webs

As nervous as if she were about to rob a bank, Julia gazed around. No-one, just ranks of semis. Walking across the road, her legs as wobbly as when she’d taken her driving test, a black cat sauntered past. The high privet hedge was an advantage, tatty with gaping holes; she dipped to peer through. A woman could be seen near the window. Seconds later the door opened, the woman shuffling to the garage. Dragging a box along the path, she heaved it into the porch. The door closed. She was wearing a dark robe, slippers and a towel over her head. The dull December day gave no clues as to what David’s ‘squeeze’ looked like. Julia pursed her lips with frustration. ‘Damn, damn,’ she muttered under her breath. Hugging the thickly padded coat to her, trudging to the car, shuddering from remaining an undiscovered voyeur, she tried to freeze those seconds, as December frost had done to the hedge. Clenching the steering wheel, anger welled as she wiped the misted windscreen. ‘The flack I’ve taken, accusations, when David’s been keeping a mistress,  even attacked me.  Wasn’t he getting enough from the tart with the yellow door?’ 

***

Picnics, concerts, and day to day stuff, which sharing elevated to the sublime, became bitter-sweet. He was, albeit in name only, married. Her perfect love, but she’d ignored the red flag.

Going over telephone conversations, she conjured up how he’d looked the last time she saw him, and if she’d known him at all. Life went on, so did wondering – why, where, when, how? She’d acknowledged positives in their affair, not letting his vanishing act spoil what was. Because their love was so extraordinary, having to return to the ordinary was devastating.

As Holly sprang onto the duvet, Trudie’s thoughts halted. Curling into a foetal position, the last images were of the stalker.

Joe Bedford, "A Bad Decade for Good People"

Congratulations to Joe Bedford, University of Leicester PhD Creative Writing student, whose debut novel, A Bad Decade for Good People, is going to be published by Parthian Books in June 2023!

Joe Bedford, photograph by Deborah Thwaites

Joe Bedford is an award-winning author from Doncaster, UK. His short fiction has been published widely and has won numerous prizes including the Leicester Writes Prize 2022. He has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Leicester. A complete history of his publications and awards, with links to published stories, is available on his website here. His debut novel A Bad Decade for Good People is available to pre-order now here.

About A Bad Decade for Good People

This is a fiercely hopeful novel about family, sexuality, grief and how we as individuals can rediscover our political agency in the face of continued uncertainty.

Brighton, 2016. Laurie wears the scar given to her by a policeman’s baton as a mark of pride among her circle of bright young activists. Her conscionable but sensitive brother George should be a part of that circle, until the appearance of enigmatic Spanish migrant Antonio threatens to divert him from his sister’s world of marches and moral accountability.

As the clouds gather over Brighton and the EU referendum accelerates both Laurie’s political zeal and Antonio’s ambiguous desires, George is faced with the fact that their city of parties and protests is suddenly a place where the possibility of saving the world – as well as the people around him – is in jeopardy of being lost forever.

At once a letter of support to everyone disillusioned by British politics, and a deeply perceptive snapshot of modern relationships, A Bad Decade for Good People is a captivating state-of-the-nation tale that begs the question: when it feels like the world is falling apart, how do you keep those you love from doing the same?

From A Bad Decade for Good People, by Joe Bedford

If the policeman’s baton had found Laurie half an inch lower she would be blind in one eye. Instead it left her with a long, crescent-shaped scar, which she wore like a medal, never hiding it and never knowing how it made my stomach flip. Every time I saw it I had to shake off the memory of her blood running down over her eyelids and onto her jacket, and afterwards the stitching and the gooey rivets it left behind and the halo of yellow bruising that hung around the socket for weeks. 

Her scar was all I could see while she pleaded with me by the side of the road, until we were lit in the headlights of Dad’s car and then running, slipping, gripping each other’s clothes in the ditch. I remember the sound of Dad’s voice carrying over the hum of the engine, the faint warmth coming through Laurie ’s jacket as she held me, the smell of mud and silage. The hills opposite looked like the silhouette of a man sleeping on his side, cut against the stars – the kind of thing you notice at midnight in the countryside, with someone who makes you feel as though things could be better. That and the raw feeling that your failure isn’t yet total but just another blip in time, waiting to pass.

Barry Jones, "The Book of Niall"

About the Author 

Barry Jones is a world-renowned professional magician with over two decades of experience. He has received critical acclaim, including BAFTA and Rose d'Or nominations, and has received numerous five-star reviews at international comedy and arts festivals. He has toured the UK multiple times with his sell-out stage shows, and has performed on BBC1 prime time in a weekly live magic show watched by millions of people. He was voted ITV1's 'Next Great Magician.' He is also known for his work as part of the comedy/magic duo 'Barry and Stuart.' The Book of Niall is his debut graphic novel. Follow him on social media at @itsbarryjones. 

About The Book of Niall

A gripping and thought-provoking story of reality, illusion, and mental health, written and illustrated by a master of illusion himself, The Book of Niall is a full-colour graphic novel that immerses the reader in a journey of self-discovery and understanding. 

Actor Niall Adams seems to have it all - a successful Hollywood career, a luxurious LA apartment, and a loving partner. But beneath the surface, Niall's grip on reality is slipping away. He is convinced that everyone around him is an actor, reciting lines from a pre-written script, and that at any moment the director will call cut. As Niall is swept along on a hyper-real journey through the bizarre world of fame and celebrity, his perception of reality is tested to its limits, leading him to question the very nature of existence itself.

You can read more about The Book of Niall on the author's website here. Below, you can read excerpts from the book.

From The Book of Niall, by Barry Jones

Sophie Haydock, "The Flames"

 

Sophie Haydock is an award-winning author living in east London. Her debut novel, The Flames, is about the four muses who posed for the artist Egon Schiele in Vienna more than 100 years ago. She is the winner of the Impress Prize for New Writers. 

Sophie trained as a journalist at City University, London, and has worked at the Sunday Times Magazine, Tatler and BBC Three, as well as freelancing for publications including the Financial Times, Guardian Weekend, Arts Council, Royal Academy and Sotheby’s.

She has interviewed leading authors, including Hilary Mantel, Maggie O’Farrell, Bernardine Evaristo, Sally Rooney and Amy Tan. Passionate about short stories, Sophie also works as a digital editor for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory. She judges writing competitions and hosts her own short story club.

Her Instagram account @egonschieleswomen – dedicated to the women who posed for Egon Schiele – has a community of over 115,000 followers. For more, visit her website here. 

About The Flames, by Sophie Haydock

Vienna at the dawn of the 20th century. An opulent, extravagant city teeming with art, music and radical ideas. A place where the social elite attend glamorous balls in the city’s palaces whilst young intellectuals decry the empire across the tables of crowded cafes. It is a city where anything seems possible – if you are a man. 

Edith and Adele are sisters, the daughters of a wealthy bourgeois industrialist. They are expected to follow the rules, to marry well, and produce children. Gertrude is in thrall to her flamboyant older brother. Marked by a traumatic childhood, she envies the freedom he so readily commands. Vally was born into poverty but is making her way in the world as a model for the eminent artist Gustav Klimt. 

None of these women is quite what they seem. Fierce, passionate and determined, they want to defy convention and forge their own path. But their lives are set on a collision course when they become entangled with the controversial young artist Egon Schiele whose work – and private life – are sending shockwaves through Vienna’s elite. All it will take is a single act of betrayal to change everything for them all. Because just as a flame has the power to mesmerize, it can also destroy everything in its path …

From The Flames

Then Edith experiences the tipping point – a moment of balance before the descent – the sensation manifesting itself first in her belly. She puts her hand to her stomach, desperate, scared that somehow the baby is in danger, that it is all her fault. Why is she being so reckless? 

She remembers, then, that she has been pushed to the edge by the people she loves most.

It takes less than half an hour for the wheel to complete its circuit. In that time, she has thought of death and love, of blood and betrayal, and where her loyalties lie.

Who can we trust in this world? Edith still hasn’t a clue.

She begins walking again. Where else can she go? She feels as if she were a homeless rambler, one of these unfortunate types who have frittered everything away and must wander the streets, with no chance of redemption or return. She is sure she’s mistaken for such a figure too, grubby as she has become, shivering and shaking. She warms her belly, thinking only of the baby, of its emerging limbs and eyes closed against the darkness inside her.

Edith approaches the market. Stalls are closing up for the evening, men and boys packing away the produce, piling up crates. She runs her hands over wrinkled fruit and meagre vegetables, the prices sky-high.

‘One for a pretty girl, down on her luck,’ a man says, putting his hand beneath his stall and pulling out an orange. He holds it out and she is transfixed. Edith sits down. He produces a knife to peel it. She’s so empty, and the juice is so sweet. It’s rare.

As she is leaving, she touches a stack of tall, brittle firewood, the only type that can be sourced during this sad war, and imagines the flames that will consume it, given time. They promise so much: life-giving warmth, and destruction. A line that is so terribly fine.

Kassie Duke, "Word Bath"

 

Kassie Duke was born in Oakland, California and grew up writing mostly silly poems in her mom's birthday cards. She is very excited to be debuting her first collection of poetry with Word Bath. Kassie has a love of words in all forms having produced her first stageplay The Play in 2015, followed by earning her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leicester in 2017. Over the years, she's served as a script reader for agents in Hollywood and as a finalist judge for screenwriting competitions in the Los Angeles area. She's currently a full-time proofreader and is in the process of a coast-to-coast relocation from Southern California to Florida, USA. To follow her literary endeavors, you can check out her casually updated blog here.

About Word Bath, by Kassie Duke

Word Bath is a new collection of poems to read tucked in that small corner of the room, nestled in a favorite chair, at the end of a long day. A departure from the usual heart-wrenching territory of verse, it’s a short, sweet walk through the mind of a writer as she puts pen to paper and finds simple joys in the wonder of words.

Three brief chapters explore almost every mood but melancholy. Hoping to give readers a taste of something more in their poetry, “Not About Love,” “Not About Loss,” and “Not About Lemons” are journeys that range from hopeful, to lovestruck, and just plain silly.

Any reader looking for an alternative to deep-cuts, but also a thoughtful love letter to poetics will enjoy Word Bath. 

From Word Bath

maybe now is when we’ll see

the driest flowers smell as sweet
these old October growths

*

In a while, I won’t be ice anymore;
able to melt with the murmur of a warm breath.
I’ll be a river running, moving with the might of the wind.
The spring of my soul will wash away the flows floating downstream
and I will dream— not of the time I spent in winter—
but of the sun coming up with the steam.