In 2014, essayist Eula Biss took out a mortgage with her husband on a two-bedroom bungalow in Chicago. The experience made her uneasy. On the first page of Having and Being Had, Biss describes how a Mexican woman accompanied by four children, on seeing the front room of the bungalow was curtainless and empty, enquired if the room was available to rent. A moment of intense discomfort.
‘The story opens when I go to the gallery with you.’ I walked in with you. We were chatting, but I was only half-listening. I was distracted by the sculptures in the cabinets and the brightly painted mural on the wall. They faded behind me as we continued to walk and as I stepped up Read More
I have a box of memories. It’s a square brown box – one of those used for moving to a new house, ‘memories’ scrawled on one side in black ink. For years it moved with me and my partner from flat to flat, accumulating a little more in weight each year as we collected little Read More
When you are a child born in one place and raised in another, ‘home’ is complicated. Even more so, when ‘home’ is a series of couches, hotel rooms, borrowed apartments, and rented houses. ‘Home’ is something that belongs to your mother, gifted to you through pictures and stories, the folklore of her youth. It is Read More
Stranger he sits on the very edge of the bench legs crossed hands on his knees fingers strongly knitted together his whole body bends to the front it seems as he was just about to get up and go but forgot about it his hair is grey almost white his skin is tired nose off-colour Read More
My first attempt was on the 4th of February 2017. We arrived at the bothy and settled onto the wooden slats for the night in a hut that sleeps ten. I think there were fifteen of us. The next morning’s cold crept into our sleeping bags, and the bustle of rucksack-packing and lunch-making sprung life Read More
‘I believe that all leaves, even grasses and mosses, acquire brighter colours just before their fall.’ Henry D. Thoreau The leaves are beginning to blush. Their green palms are speckled with pink and orange, colours just threatening to take over. The trees’ petals are now more the yellow of dawn than jade. Little tints of Read More
ROUND 1 I’m greeted by the acrid stench of sweat, the whirring of blurred skipping ropes spinning. Whips, cracks, and grunts echo; defenceless leather bags hang at the mercy of those that pound at them. From the depths of the hall, voices rise above the clamour, shouting instructions, followed by an artillery of punches Read More
It’s my turn to present. Mrs Dover is in her usual position – lounging on a desk, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped – she leans forward, ears primed for grammatical error. My arm shakes as I hold up my book. ‘This is one of my favourites,’ I utter, ‘Ariel, by Sylvia Plath’. Dover, Read More
