Alone with a Book is an excellent piece of creative nonfiction which we are very proud to have published in the Winter 2023 Issue of Spellbinder. Overall, Alone with a Book is really lovely, well-written and funny, but it doesn’t stop there. In this piece, the author Stephanie Shi beautifully examined the loneliness and connection… Continue reading Winter 2023 – Non-fiction
Category: Editor’s Picks
The Editor’s Picks section will showcase and review some of the best extracts from the works published in our back issues of the magazine.
Winter 2023 – Fiction
Like Sardines by Douglas Jern The passenger layer now reached the tops of the seat backs, and newcomers had to climb up it to get inside, and climb it they did. Nothing seemed to faze them. Before long even the luggage racks were full of people, who lay there looking bored as the train rolled… Continue reading Winter 2023 – Fiction
Winter 2023 – Poetry
‘A Dragon Curled Around My Heart’ by Quinn Murphy ‘In my chest, a dragon curls, Around my beating heart. To guard it from the many Who would see it pulled apart.’ Quinn Murphy’s poem ‘A Dragon Curled Around My Heart’ was the opening piece for Spellbinder’s Winter 2023 Issue. It employs the ballad form well… Continue reading Winter 2023 – Poetry
Autumn 2022 – Drama
French Knickers by Patricia M Osborne Patricia M Osborne’s piece featured in our latest issue, French Knickers, proves to be a wonderful and engaging character monologue. The stage description of the character’s entrance sets the entire mood: she walks in carrying a bottle and a glass of red wine. She flops into the armchair, kicks… Continue reading Autumn 2022 – Drama
Autumn 2022 – Fiction
Walking Backwards by Dino Costi In Walking Backwards, the reader is literally walked back in time by Costi. The story’s retrograde setting is one in which women are valued most as wives and child-bearers. Marriage is constantly on the minds of Sabrina, Abigail, and Caroline, not as a possibility but as a fate. But as… Continue reading Autumn 2022 – Fiction
Autumn 2022 – Poetry
IVF – Eugene O’Hare praying to the God she never thought …vicious with want. … baby.don’t float away. your word…speechless When I first read this poem, it made me slightly uncomfortable. Grading poems or deciding which one should be published is a complex process. As an editor, you have a responsibility to ensure that there… Continue reading Autumn 2022 – Poetry
Summer 2022 – Fiction
The brevity of Jocelyne Lamarche’s Ghost belies its complexity. Coming in at just 210 words, the story manages to pack in vivid imagery, establish a strong sense of character and weave its way through feelings of sadness, longing and hope. It is a story to be read again and again, one of those which yields… Continue reading Summer 2022 – Fiction
Spring 2022 – Poetry
Cornwall – Lily Rose Winter drinking wine on the beachfront it’s that time between light and dark when the sea begins to look like an untuned television screen noise among silence pixelated, out of focus, flickering, i listen with one ear to what you say while the other is drawn to the sea, as if… Continue reading Spring 2022 – Poetry
Winter 2022 – Drama
Sarah Wallis’ comedic stage play My Psycho Ex Was an Angel is a genuine delight to read. As an editor, I was instantly captivated by its unusual plot and surreal tone. The scene painted for us is one of a first date, which is taking place in an art gallery between Adrian and Claire. It… Continue reading Winter 2022 – Drama
Winter 2022 – Non-Fiction
A difficult year calls for the fulfilling familiarity that the cosiness of December brings. The last few weeks, leading up to the beginning of a new year, feel like a suspended simulation where one revels in one’s guiltless liberty to take a pause, disconnect from the harsh realities that life demands, and simply dwell in… Continue reading Winter 2022 – Non-Fiction