Image by RUDE London.
Dear writers, readers and friends,
VISUAL VERSE IS SIX!
Yes we have made it through our teething and toddler years and now we are in big school. Our labour of love project has reached the grand old age of SIX and we are proud, humble, grateful and downright amazed. We couldn’t have made it without all our readers, writers, leads, supporters and some very special guest curators who took over and brought new voices to us.
THANK YOU!
And we must also thank our amazing team, based in the UK, Germany, USA, and sometimes Australia, who work around babies, books, dogs, higher education courses, day jobs and night jobs to bring the site to you each month and publish and tweet your work. We are proud to be a free resource for writers and readers all over the world.
For our sixth birthday edition, we’re bringing you a piece of graphic art by the tenacious, insanely talented duo that is RUDE London (https://www.thisisrude.com/) . Their work is big and loud and bold, setting the tone for this auspicious birthday issue. In response, we open with a line-up of some of the most exciting, avant-garde writers working today – all equally brilliant, equally unique.
Our page one piece comes from Chika Unigwe (https://twitter.com/chikaunigwe) , a Nigerian writer whose work is trend breaking. Her novels include Night Dancer and On Black Sisters Streets. She has written about climate change for the Guardian, feminism for the White Review and was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in African writing. Her latest book is a collection of short stories, Better Never Than Late (https://cassavarepublic.biz/product/cassava-shorts/?v=3a52f3c22ed6) , out now from Cassava Republic.
Our second page is live from Linda Mannheim (https://www.lindamannheim.com/) , the author of three books of fiction: Risk, Above Sugar Hill and This Way to Departures, just out from Influx Press. Her work has appeared in magazines in the US, UK, South Africa, and Canada including Granta, 3:AM Magazine and Catapult Story. Eimear McBride said that Linda’s stories ‘provoke and abide like a slap’. Originally from New York, Linda divides her time between London and Berlin and is working on Barbed Wire Fever, a literary project that explores what it means to seek and provide refuge.
On page three, we bring you work from Glen James Brown (https://twitter.com/glen_j_brown?lang=en) , whose debut novel Ironopolis (https://www.parthianbooks.com/products/ironopolis) – about the collapse of industry and social housing in Teesside, and its impact on community, culture and folklore – was called ‘nothing short of a triumph’ by the Guardian. It was also shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, as well as longlisted for the Portico Prize. He comes from County Durham, but lives and writes in sunny Manchester.
And to really jump off the deep end, we complete our launch with a piece by Yara Rodrigues Fowler (https://yararodriguesfowler.com/) , a British Brazilian novelist from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019 in the UK and USA. Yara was named one of The Observer’s nine hottest-tipped debut novelists of 2019 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. She is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe, for and by Latin American women. She’s writing her second novel now, for which she received the John C Lawrence Award from the Society of Authors towards research in Brazil.
So, dear writers and readers, it’s time for some birthday indulgence – treat yourself with some high-quality reading and then sharpen your pencils… the image is the starting point, the rest is up to you,
Love,
Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke
Connect with us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@chikaunigwe (https://twitter.com/chikaunigwe?lang=en)
@lindamannheim (https://twitter.com/LindaMannheim)
@Glen_J_Brown (https://twitter.com/glen_j_brown?lang=en)
@yazzarf (https://twitter.com/yazzarf)