FREE ISSUE 153
Featuring Torrie White Cathy Thomas Regi Claire Maria Terrone Vikram Kapur Jane Rogers Sarah Ang June 2016
Litro Magazine 60
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TATE BRITAIN U N T I L 25 SEP 2016
A RT A N D P H OTO G R A P H Y FROM T H E P RE- R A P H A EL I T E S TO T H E MO D ERN AG E
PAINT ING WITH LIGHT u PIMLICO Supported by Tate Patrons Dante Gabriel Rossetti Proserpine 1874 Tate
‘A FA B U LO USLY RI C H SH OW ’ E V EN I N G S TA N DA RD
Zaida Ben-Yusuf The Odor of Pomegranates 1899, published 1901 Photogravure on paper Tate
#153 June 2016 CONTRIBUTORS
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EDITOR’S LETTER
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CASSIA COUNTY FAIR, AS CAROLINE UNDERSTANDS IT
HOMECOMING
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RESURRECTING MR JINGLES
WHY I HATE SELKIE STORIES
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BEAUTY, TRUTH AND GLOVES
DEAD FATHERS
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JANE ROGERS Q&A
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#153 Litro Team
Editor-in-Chief Eric Akoto Online Editor
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Arts Editor Daniel Janes arts@litro.co.uk Assistant Fiction Editor/Story Sunday Barney Walsh storysunday@litro.co.uk lunchbreakfic Belinda Campbell lunchbreakfic@litro.co.uk Tuesday Tales Hayley Camis tuesdaytales@litro.co.uk Essays Samuel Dodson essays@litro.co.uk Contributing Editors at Large Sophie Lewis, Rio, Brazil Lead Designer Laura Hannum Advertising Manager +44(0) 203 371 9971 sales@litro.co.uk General inquiries: contact info@litro.co.uk or call 020 3371 9971 Litro Magazine believes literary magazines should not just be targeted at writers themselves, or even those with a particular interest in literature, instead Litro believes in reaching the general reader whether they be a commuter, someone browsing in bookshop or in a bar or cafĂŠ to meet a friend.
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Contributors
Litro Magazine • #153 • June 2016
Torrie White
Torrie Jay White is a writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She holds a degree in English literature and History, and currently works for her state's historical society. Her work has appeared most recently in fields magazine, and she is currently working on her first novel, Bruised Land
Sarah Ang
Regi Claire Cathy Thomas Cathy Thomas is a playwright who's had work staged at the Arcola, Southwark Playhouse and Rich Mix, with readings at Theatre Royal Haymarket, Lyric Studio and Free Word Centre. She recently won a place on the Arvon and Jerwood Foundations’ prestigious mentoring scheme for writers.
2016 Litro & IGGY International Young Writer Prize, 16-year old Sarah resides in the city-state of Singapore. Her works have been or will forthcoming in The Claremont Review, Cultured Vultures and Page & Spine.
Regi Claire is a Swissborn writer based in Edinburgh. English is her fourth language. She has published two novels and two collections of stories, all in Scotland. Both collections were shortlisted for a Saltire Scottish Book of the Year award. Fighting It, her second collection, was also longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her story ‘The Tasting’, which first appeared in Ambit, was selected for Best British Short Stories 2013. Regi is a Royal Literary Fund Lector and a former RLF Fellow. She is currently completing a new collection of stories
Maria Terrone Maria Terrone: Is a poet, who began to focus more on essay writing when the Guggenheim Museum commissioned her to write an essay for a NYC performance project taking place in her Queens neighbourhood. Her nonfiction has appeared in Witness, Briar Cliff Review, Potomac Review, Kestrel, Evansville Review and The Common.
Saba Taj
Vikram Kapur Vikram Kapur: Has a PhD in creative and critical writing from the University of East Anglia where he received the IndiaAfrica bursary. He has published two critically-acclaimed novels in his native India--Time is a fire and The Wages of life. His short stories and nonfiction have been published or accepted for publication in World Literature Today, Wasafiri, Litro, Ambit, the Dublin Quarterly, New Writing, Driftwood, The Times of India, The Hindu, Frontline and Firstpost.
Jane Rogers Jane Rogers is editor of Oxford University Press's Good Fiction Guide, published in 2001. Her work for television includes Dawn and the Candidate (1989) for Channel 4, winner of a Samuel Beckett Television Award; and a BAFTA—nominated television adaptation of her novel Mr Wroe's Virgins (1993), directed by Danny Boyle. Jane Rogers teaches on the MA writing course at Sheffield Hallam University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Drawing inspiration from Islamic eschatology, postcolonial theories of hybridity, and afro-futurism, Saba Taj imagines the deviant beauty of dystopia. Saba's Technicolor Muslimah seres in 2011, challenged herself to more nuanced conversations about Muslim/POC/feminine identity. Find out more about Saba's work www.artbysaba.com
#153 • June 2016
EDITOR'S LETTER Dear Reader, The stories gathered in this issue are very much the creation of humans—our cover art this month is titled the “Amna, Student” by American—Muslim Artist Saba Taj from her "Technicolor Muslimah" series from 2011— Saba say’s of her work: “Even though it’s just art, it’s contributing to a dialogue that is happening on a lot of different levels.
We often read reports of how AI (Artificial Intelligence) is fast replacing humans in the workplace. In fact increasingly many companies are having to grapple with decisions as to when or if even at all human contact is necessary or required with customers. In journalism it’s becoming the norm to see auto generated narrative—with companies such as Narrative Science, generating news reports covering anything from finance to sports. The company Automated Insights for example has made their platforms publicly available, allowing anyone to have the potential to have their own robotic writers—with little or no programming knowledge.
Connecting Islamophobia, and battling against that, to self-identifying as a feminist to becoming more involved in activism across the board, and the process of really getting deep into consciousness building dialogue has really informed my work and taken it to new places. It’s something that is specific to Islam and always has been because that’s where I’m coming from. How do we go to those difficult places? And I think art is a wonderful vehicle for doing that.”
Every November for the past three years, programmers are invited to take part in the “National Novel Generation Month” (NaNoGenMo) inspired by the popular National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)— NaNoGenMo came about from a post tweeted on a whim by it’s the developer and artist Darius Kazemi.
We open the issue with Torrie White’s Cassia County Fair, as Caroline Understands it, a story about that very human experience of love and rejection. As a young girls attempts to impress a boy lead to unwanted attentions from
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another and her first experience of the affects of alcohol abuse.
to discover like-minded souls in the Worshipful Company of Gloves of London, which traces it's origins to the Royal Charter of King James I.
In Home Coming, Cathy Thomas gives a tale of guilt and the consequences of infidelity, as a wife struggles to discipline her teenage daughter (whose party gets out of hand) on returning home to a wrecked house from a weekend with another man.
Vikram Kapur gives us our second personal essay in Dead Fathers, an essay about a young Indian student in America, who grapples with keeping his traditional father happy whilst trying to fit into his new western surroundings.
Regi Claire's Resurrecting Mr Jingles, shows how a Berlin art curator finds and keeps a house mouse as a pet, only to be accused of animal cruelty by an animal rights activist.
We end with an interview from writer Niyati Keni—who sits down with winning multiaward winning author Jane Rogers discussing nerves, writing process and more. Jane Rogers' awards include the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Somerset Maughen Award, and the Samuel Becket Award. She has also been nominated for the Man Booker, the IMPAC and BAFTA.
Selkie Stories, by Singapore based writer Sarah Ang, is the winning story from our 2016 young writiner's competition. At 16 Sarah Ang’s handling of themes of loss and abandonment is done with great sensitivity while exploiting the ancient legend in a highly original and engrossing manner.
Eric Akoto Editor-in-Chief
Maria Terrone’s Beauty, Truth and Gloves—is the first of two personal essays, about a young woman's obsession with Gloves—leading her
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Join Our Community Help us help writers. Your membership will support our efforts to find new ways of looking at the world through stories. You'll also be helping us provide opportunities and exposure for emerging writers, perhaps kick-starting their careers.
New Membership Options: With our all-access UK membership, you get Litro Magazine delivered to your door: 10 issues of Litro Magazine a year, plus exclusive access to hundreds of short stories from past issues in our digital archive. Get in on our quarterly Book Club: four new books a year from our Book Club, plus access to live author Q&As, and the chance to see your reviews published on our site. Discounts on Litro Live! events: 50% off Litro Live! events and priority booking. With our all-access International membership, you get all the same benefits as for UK readers, but at an additional cost for postage and packaging. Our Student membership gives you the same benefits as a full membership, but at a discounted rate. You will be asked to show proof that you are a student of a school or university in the UK.
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The Litro Magazine, World Series brings to Londoners annually a selection of fresh, exciting literary stars and artists from around the globe.
12th July, 2016 at Waterstones Piccadilly 203-206 Piccadilly London W1J 9HD
Join us to celebrate the Launch of Litro Magazine’s Cuba edition: with talks, readings and Live music from some today’s leading writers, artists and musicians from Cuba. £5 tickets are available in-store, Juneby 2016telephone 020 7851 2400 Litro Magazine or by email: piccadilly@waterstones.com 12
FICTION
CASSIA COUNTY FAIR, AS CAROLINE UNDERSTANDS IT To impress a boy, a young finds out the hard way what it's like to be drunk for the first time.
by Torrie White
Lights flashed. Colours. An arc of colours, splitting open the sky. They blinked. The whole night sky blinked.
No. She blinked. Caroline blinked, and the wave of colours vanished. She rolled onto her side and vomited, alcohol and stomach bile stinging her throat, inflaming her nostrils. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and kept her face down; her body arced away from Henry. He hadn’t noticed when she’d stumbled to the ground, and looking at him again, she saw that he hadn’t noticed her being sick either. Caroline pulled herself into a seated position, elbows across her knees, forehead on her arms. The pebbled prairie was hard against her thighs, scraggly grasses that brushed her skin. Her bare arms were warm against the cold sweat on her forehead, the darkness a relief from the carnival lights. The spinning slowed. “What’s she doing down there? You too drunk to stand?” It was the big kid, the one who’d given Caroline the liquor. *** When she arrived at the fair, she met Henry at the ticket booth, but instead of going in, he led her away from the entrance, guiding her through a maze of cars to a truck where half a dozen other boys were waiting for them. “My friends,” Henry had mumbled by way of an introduction. Friends? The semi-circle opened, and Caroline saw what the boys were shielding. Perched on the bed of the truck, the biggest of the group was filling dusty soda bottles with alcohol. Nobody said much. They watched the sun cut its light through the splashing amber liquid. As each bottle was filled, it was passed around the circle and shoved deep into jean pockets. Caroline felt a line of sweat break across her hair line, equal parts heat and embarrassment. The boys gave her shifty glances, and she wondered what Henry had told them about her, if they’d expected her. She hadn’t expected them. The boy in the truck bed tipped the last of the brown liquor back down his throat, then tossed it into an open hatch. He opened a bottle of clear liquid, and filled up one last, gritty Mountain Dew bottle. “Cupcake vodka,” he said, handing it to her. Jumping down from June 2016
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FICTION
HOMECOMING A wife struggles to discipline her teenage daughter (whose party gets out of hand) on returning home to a wrecked house from a weekend with another man.
by Cathy Thomas
You said you were having a sleep over, you say. Your daughter nods. You take a step back outside the front door, and then another into the road. There are eggs yolked across the front of the house. On the windows, the door, weeping down the whitewash. You’d been sitting in the carpark by the ice cream kiosk for over an hour before driving back and now you’re regretting not giving yourself more time. You had anticipated carnage of a sort coming home but not this. Nikki balks as you walk through the door, keys spiked between each of your fingers, anxiety spitting like alka-seltzer. Your daughter’s face is pale, eyes red at the rims, bruises on her bare thighs. She smells like male sweat and Malibu. You tell her to put some jeans on but Nikki is trying to use her scrawny form as a shield against the mess, the appalling scale of mess that she hasn’t been able to clean up even though it’s mid-morning now. Cigarette butts in the cutglass glasses and crisps crisped into the carpet. There is a sickly stain on the skirting board and a slick of bright blue creeping across the arm of the sofa. Nikki says nothing as you survey one small unhappiness after the next. Door handles missing, chips on door frames and picture frames bullied sideways, watermarks on every surface. All your favourite things broken and ready for the bin. Even burglars do better jobs. You wonder if anything has been nicked. Your husband would tell you not to suspect such bad things of teenagers, that people are good, but look how we are capable. You set your overnight bag down beside the bottom step, its zips all zipped and luggage label falsely declaring a flight you haven’t been on. Nikki is too afraid of being told off to ask you how your work trip was. You’re grateful to not have to lie. There’s no point in you taking your shoes off as you go upstairs to inspect the state of the bedrooms. Your husband always says why have carpets, it reminds him of people your parents’ age, and you concede that you’ll have to get rid of them once and for all now. Bottle caps in all the corners. Unclaimed coats in the spare room and there in your room, your bedroom, on your bed: a knotted plastic bag of used condoms as if the stork had brought it. You wish your husband were home to help shout at Nikki, tell her what a disgrace she is to your family, but then the thought of him coming home reminds you of what you will have to tell him. What a disgrace to your family: something he would never say, no matter how angry he might get. You sit on the section of the bed that looks the least used. A broken slat crunches under your weight. You’ve never been one for diets but it strikes you how much your body has changed. Now you look like one of the older aunts who’d been sidelined at your wedding. And the bed that has held your marriage close in the night for seventeen years looks just like any piece of furniture, tired, dated. June 2016
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FICTION
RESURRECTING MR JINGLES A Berlin art curator finds and keeps a house mouse as a pet, only to be accused of animal cruelty by an animal rights activist.
by Regi Claire my return from Paris I was about to load up the empty fridge when my eyes After snagged on something on the floor. A dead orchid leaf, elongated, browny grey. Only it wasn’t. Slap bang in the centre of the frowsy purple mat by the cooker sat Mr Jingles, tail curled round him, bright eyes looking up at me, not at all afraid. I didn’t scream (I never scream). I let go of my shopping, clenched my eyes tight shut, then opened them again, slowly. The mouse was still there. Hadn’t moved, in fact. Resurrecting Mr Jingles could only mean trouble, as I well knew. But of course this was the real world: this was Berlin in the twenty-first century, not fiction. And yet, a few steps down the corridor, inside my silver-shell suitcase with the Air France tag, lay a paperback copy of Stephen King’s The Green Mile. I’d finished reading the book only yesterday, over a café caramel on Avenue de L’Opéra, crying so hard my tears had formed little puddles on the table. When the waiter brought the bill, he’d dabbed at them with the corner of his white apron, like a nurse cleaning a wound. Now, blinking at the memory, I stood rooted and watched the mouse. His flanks rose and fell in shivers of light; his whiskers trembled ever so slightly— playfully?—and I could see his nose twitch. What to do? In the end I fetched the cheese dome from the cupboard and placed it over Mr Jingles as if he were a lump of furred Roquefort or Stilton. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, ‘just so you don’t get squashed by accident.’ He remained quite motionless, even his whiskers had ceased trembling. For a moment I fancied that the very essence of him had fled to an existence elsewhere and I was looking at an effigy, not a real mouse. But then he unfurled his tail, carefully licked one of his front paws and tripped forward to sniff the plastic surface that separated us. As I began to stow away my purchases, he half-turned, perhaps to keep me in his sights. Would he like some milk? A sliver of smoked salmon? Or toast, maybe? Not cheese, though. Months ago I’d set a mousetrap in the larder, baiting it with smelly Camembert, and all it had attracted was dust. I poured a little cream into the lid of a jam jar and crumbled some rye bread. When the doorbell rang, I wasn’t surprised. It would be old Frau Krämer from downstairs, wanting to drop off my keys. I pulled the door wide… …and came face to face with tousled curls and a blond beard. An orange T-shirt glowed under the man’s jacket like hot coals in a stove. One of his hands was splayed casually on the doorpost. ‘Hi, I’m Jonas,’ he said with a smile. The crooked line of a scar ran through his upper lip. His eyes were large and what in the trade we call cerulean. June 2016
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Selkie stories are the worst kind of stories. They’re always so formulaic—man finds dingy seal skin on the seashore, takes it home thinking to make a quick buck, returns to the shore and almost jumps out of his own skin finding a beautiful woman there, naked. Of course, he falls in love, he takes her home, they get married. Happy ending, right? Hah. In all these stories, the man will make some mistake, and the woman finds the skin. Immediately, she jumps back into the sea, already in seal form, and swims away while the man chases after her in vain. It’s far from a fairytale ending—at least, not for the man, or his children, who wake up the next morning finding they have no mother. *** “Can you tell me about your mother?” The therapist leans forward, smile pasted on her face. We’ve been here for about an hour, and her patience is wearing thin. I lean backwards, studying her face impassively. In the distance, waves crash on jagged rocks, while a lone seagull circles overhead. “Moira?” my father says evenly, and I am reminded that the therapist is doing me a favour, agreeing to see me on such short notice, that we are struggling to make ends meet and every minute I waste is money down the drain. So I grit my teeth and rattle off a long list of characteristics—brown hair, grey eyes, medium height, willow-tree slender, spoke with an accent no one could quite place, loved swimming, gave birth to me, took care of me, left me. When I finish both her and my father are staring. There’s something in my father’s eyes, an emotion I can’t quite place. The therapist taps a pen on the table, disappointment evident in her eyes. “Maybe we should try again tomorrow,” she says, in a not-so-cheery voice. As the therapist leaves our cottage, driving off in her black Jaguar, jarringly out of place in our rural fishing village, I look down at the floor, away from my father. He clears his throat, and I think he’s going to reprimand me for the unsuccessful session, but instead he says, “Moira. It’s not weakness to tell someone how you feel, you know.” I nod. He turns, and climbs up the stairs to his room. I watch him go in silence. How can I explain that when I think of her I feel only numbness? It scares me a little, my lack of feeling. Googling ‘how to cope with loss’ merely produces the clichéd mantra of “Let it out, don’t hold it in” and provides ten-step lists on how to Move On With Your Life. Some bring assurance that the ‘tears will dry up’ in time, even if the sadness never goes away altogether. Other, only slightly more helpful articles say it’s okay if you don’t cry at once, some people cope with loss differently. All say it’s detrimental to bottle up your grief, and encourage me to ‘find things that distract you’. None tell you what to do if you haven’t shed a single tear in all the sixteen months since your ‘loss’. On the other hand, most people who lose selkies have no problems letting their grief out, or so the tales imply. One of the most famous tales is about the man who was so afraid to lose his selkie wife that he carried the skin around everywhere he went. Predictably, one day he forgot to take the June 2016
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NON-FICTION
BEAUTY, TRUTH AND GLOVES A young woman's obsession with Gloves leads her to discover like-minded souls in the Worshipful Company of Gloves of London, which traces it's origins to the Royal Charter of King James I.
by Maria Terrone lights have dimmed, strings and The horns swell ominously, and a gloved hand
of London, which traces its origins to a medieval trade guild. In 2013-14, celebrating the 375th anniversary of its Royal Charter from King James I to promote “the wearing of gloves and the business and training connected with glove making,” the group takes its mission very seriously.
looms: murder is in the air. And because of those gloves, the hapless forensic scientists will come up empty after dusting for fingerprints at the crime scene. Between all the murder mysteries I’ve been watching lately, supplemented by scores of noir film classics starring vamps in black satin, elbowlength gloves, I’ve been under a spell.
The Glovers’ website welcomes us into their realm, governed by the “Master of the Court,” who rules with a retinue of “Under Wardens.” Ann Esslemont, the Master as of this writing, wears a serious expression with her flowing ceremonial robe and elbowlength gauntlet gloves embroidered with an official-looking crest.
Gloves=Death? Why not? Just ask duelling victims Alexander Hamilton. Or Elizabethan actor Gabriel Spence, done in by none other than playwright Ben Jonson (serious artistic differences?). Or Alexander Pushkin. Or so many others. The beginning of the end for them was a glove flung to the ground. Before they knew it, they were counting off paces and aiming their pistols—but not accurately or fast enough to avoid becoming history’s ultimate losers.
The Company’s enormous collection encompasses “heritage items” from the 16th and 17th century including coronation gloves. When you enter the exalted and rarified world of the titled, you recognize that a glove is not a glove but the embodiment of that society’s mores and customs. During a coronation My interest in gloves, approaching obsession when it comes to my own collection, is nearly ceremony for the British monarchy, the sovereign’s right-hand glove is removed so that lifelong. On the surface, they would seem to a coronation ring can be slipped on. But if a be a superficial object of attraction. member of royalty or the gentry is disgraced, Would a psychologist say that I’m avoiding he is stripped of his gloves. So that fine kidskin skin-to-skin contact by the wearing of a carries a lot of weight. second epidermis? Not all gloves in the Company’s collection Hardly. So, what else would account for my are so imposing. Among the contemporary fascination? I haven’t found the answer, but I items are gloves of eye-popping orange that was glad to learn recently that I’m not alone. could have been worn in London’s Swinging What a relief to discover like-minded souls Sixties, along with one of only three 21st in the Worshipful Company of Glovers century examples: black gloves rescued from June 2016
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NON-FICTION
DEAD FATHERS A young Indian student in America, grapples with keeping his traditional parents happy whilst enjoying the temptations that surround him.
by Vikram Kapur the time I barely registered the bottom At or the thong, even less the woman to whom
clad in a variety of swimsuits people the beach. A bright late summer Georgian sky spreads itself above an Atlantic gleaming like a starry constellation in the sunshine. Hip hop music surges out of radios. The smell from barbecues wafts in the air.
both belonged. I was far too high on Yeats. I had discovered him two weeks ago in a classroom in Savannah, Georgia and his words were ringing in my unbelieving head the way temple bells might in the head of a believer. I was soaking in the lake waters of Innisfree, chasing the girl with apple blossom in her hair, delighting in the cloths of heaven…
It is at this point that my father starts to take shape. He has to be the most overdressed person on that beach; he is wearing trousers, a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of shiny, black leather shoes. His thick white hair is restless in the breeze. His nose, which is slim and pointed like mine, contemplates the ground as do the astigmatic eyes behind the thick glasses. His parchment-coloured face is abashed. One hand picks on his white moustache. He is the bashful Indian father, far too embarrassed to eyeball half-naked women in the company of his teenaged son.
Nothing about that moment in 1988 could possibly tease me away, even if it came dressed as a bottom in a thong. Now, almost twenty-eight years later, the same moment returns very differently. The first thing to appear is a marvellously round, tanned bottom in a T-shaped green thong. Then the rest of the woman materializes. Long, leathery legs flow earthwards. A slim torso thrusts up. Firm breasts bulge inside the bikini cup. Long, curly brown hair frames a delicate face with high cheekbones…I have a sneaking suspicion that neither she nor her bottom was anywhere near as perfect as I now see them; if they were no amount of Yeats hero worship could have culled me away from them. But I have no desire to tamper with the memory. If it is fiction, then it is one that I wish to believe.
I see all that now in a way I could not in 1988. Back then, my dad was merely a human receptacle into which I was unleashing my excitement. I have no idea which part of Yeats’ oeuvre I was exulting in. But I can see Dad indulging me with the patience of a loving parent. He had a vague notion about Yeats. Didn’t he do something with Tagore? he asked. He pronounced his name in a way that made it rhyme with Keats who he had read at school. Later that day, at my behest, he picked up my textbook of Yeats’ Collected Poems and dutifully studied it for an hour. He
As I continue to look, the sallow sands of Tybee beach arrange themselves round the woman. White, black and bronzed bodies
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The Linen Hall Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, seeks entries for the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award Open to those over 18, who were born in, or are citizens of, or resident in Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland. The award is designed to foster and encourage the tradition of the Irish short story and has run biennially since 2006. It is in honour of Michael McLaverty (1904—1992), one of the foremost proponents of the Irish short story. McLaverty’s archive was donated to the Library in 2005 by his Literary Executors and makes up one of our many world-famous collections.
The winner will receive £2,000 and the winning entry, with those placed second and third, will be published in an anthology.
Deadline: midnight Thursday 30 June 2016 The Linen Hall Library (est. 1788) is an historic, subscription library holding world renowned collections June For 2016competition
rules and information please visit www.linenhall.com or contact the Library at Litro Magazine info@linenhall.com or on +44 28 9032 1707 51
JANE ROGERS Q&A with author Niyati Keni I recently had the extremely good fortune to be able to interview one of the most decorated writers in the UK, Professor Jane Rogers, about her creative process. Over a long and prestigious career, Rogers has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Samuel Becket Award, the Writers Guild Best Fiction prize and the BBC National Short Story Award. She has been long listed for the Man Booker, the IMPAC prize and the Orange prize and she has been BAFTA nominated. It was heartening to hear that even a seasoned writer like Rogers can still feel uncertainty about whether a story has legs or not and that, on occasion, she still abandons a story without completing it.
"
For me, a novel idea gradually comes together over a long-ish period of time. With Conrad and Eleanor I knew I wanted to write about a long marriage, but many different strands had to fall into place before I could be sure it would be a novel.
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• Short Story • Memoir • Flash Fiction • Poetry
www.fishpublishing.com
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Ten days of theatre re-imagined 22 June - 02 July 2016 Tickets from £5 #RADAFest rada.ac.uk/festival Supported by The Shaw Fund Named after our benefactor George Bernard Shaw this fund supports new writing within RADA’s world-renowned training and offers a platform to showcase work by emerging artists.
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22 June - 02 July 2016 rada.ac.uk/festival #RADAFest
Over 30 different productions from comedy to tragedy and everything in between Litro Magazine June 2016 59