When we sit down to write our stories, there are two forces that tend to drive their direction: the plot and the characters. Some stories delve into the complicated inner worlds of its characters, while others feature a world that is as complex and interesting as the people written into it. So how do we,… Continue reading What Drives a Story: A Guide to Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven Worlds
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Mothers, Daughters and the Multiverse: Self-sacrificing Motherhood in Fishya Setiana’s Poem Orange Chicken/Multiverse
Fishya Setiana’s Orange Chicken / Multiverse, published in the Summer 2026 Issue, explores and nurtures the complexity of mother-daughter relationships. Using a contrapuntal structure, Setiana reflects on the notion of the ‘multiverse’, a multiverse which holds different possibilities for the poem’s subject, the mother, or ‘Ma’, all recounted from the perspective of the daughter. At… Continue reading Mothers, Daughters and the Multiverse: Self-sacrificing Motherhood in Fishya Setiana’s Poem Orange Chicken/Multiverse
With Love, From the Other Side of the Inbox
Literary magazines are small acts of enthusiasm disguised as infrastructure. They exist because someone, somewhere, believes a stranger’s sentence can justify a late-night edit, a layout debate in the group chat, or trying to fit one more poem into an issue that was technically finished yesterday. They’re part curation, part gamble, part communal stubbornness, fuelled… Continue reading With Love, From the Other Side of the Inbox
What We’re Reading: A Creative Nonfiction Summer Reading List
As a reader who needs to be ‘in the mood’ for a book before I can read it, I struggle to assign myself a reading list which I will actually stick to. I tend to pick up whatever book matches the particular flavour of adventure, nostalgia, or heartache I’m craving, and spend days consuming it… Continue reading What We’re Reading: A Creative Nonfiction Summer Reading List
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
A Guide for Nonfiction Writers There are two moments in every writer’s dating life that inspire equal amounts of fear. The first is realising you fancy someone. The second is them realising you write nonfiction. From that point on, every conversation carries a faint air of legal negotiation. Anecdotes are shared with caution, offhand remarks… Continue reading How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Weaponised Domesticity in Bryanna Licciardi’s The Polisher
Popular murderess icons are a dime a dozen, and one such icon exemplified in Bryanna Licciardi’s The Polisher is ‘The Monstrous Homemaker,’ where weaponised domesticity transforms a comely figure of nurture into something lethal. Characters such as Pearl in Pearl are trademarked to rupture their simple, sweet shell of femininity and docility, like a boiling… Continue reading The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Weaponised Domesticity in Bryanna Licciardi’s The Polisher
Nostalgia: The Art of Remembering Wrong
Nostalgia was once treated as a medical condition rather than an emotion. In 1688, Swiss physician Johannes Hofer used the term to describe the intense homesickness experienced by soldiers living far from home. Derived from the Greek nostos (return home) and algos (pain), it referred to a form of longing intense enough to produce physical… Continue reading Nostalgia: The Art of Remembering Wrong
What We’re Reading: A Witness to Violence in Marvel Moreno’s December Breeze
Amidst the humidity of a Cartagena night, I lay awake beneath the lethargic chug of an overworked air conditioner, excited to visit my family’s home city for the first time. I tried to imagine the families that had once lived in that colonial-style home in Centro Historico, now carefully preserved as an Airbnb; perhaps the… Continue reading What We’re Reading: A Witness to Violence in Marvel Moreno’s December Breeze
The Crease Effect: Intimacy in Action Lines
In the midst of the third millennium’s chaos and apocalyptic predictions, the waitress serves my cappuccino and calls me ‘honey’. The café is small, peculiarly quaint: five tables and a slightly askew picture of the New York City skyline. The doorbell jingles and in walks the waitress’s partner, daffodils in hand and the certainty of… Continue reading The Crease Effect: Intimacy in Action Lines
Naughty Little Creatures: Roger D. Anderson’s Humorous Take On The Harmless Paper Clip
Our Winter 2026 issue includes many exciting pieces, but one in particular stayed with me. Paper clip sex by Roger D. Anderson is a quick, humorous expression of joie de vivre made in just a couple of rough brushstrokes, the rich colours of which are as vivid as an oil painting, and just as memorable.… Continue reading Naughty Little Creatures: Roger D. Anderson’s Humorous Take On The Harmless Paper Clip