Volume 06, Chapter 04 | February 2019

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Image by Norbu Gyachung

Greetings dear readers and writers,

As you know, we at Visual Verse span many continents, come from many countries and reach out to you wherever you are. We are citizens of the world, and our site reflects that. While others build walls and diminish democracies, we will continue to use our platform as an antidote to boundaries of language, hierarchies of power and divisive and constructed categories of identity. We will celebrate all of you, however you choose to define yourselves. And most especially, we will support and promote your creativity, resilience and the courage it takes to use words and put new work into the world.

That, dear friends, is why we have chosen this month’s image and these inspiring writers. Our visual prompt for February was captured by photographer Norbu Gyachung. We won’t say more, the story is up to you, but we will tell you that Norbu started his life as a refugee in Tibet and is currently based in France.
We encourage you to explore his portfolio (https://unsplash.com/@norbuw) , much of which depicts the strength and passion of Paris and its people, embodied in many different ways.

Our lead, Daniel Trilling (https://twitter.com/trillingual?lang=en) , is a journalist who lives in London. He spent several years reporting on the experiences of people who come to Europe in search of asylum, and is the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe (Picador, 2018). He also writes occasional, more abstract pieces which you can read at tinyletter.com/trillingual.

On page two, we bring you Ariel Francisco (https://arielfrancisco.com/) , author of A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020) and All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017). A poet and translator born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents and raised in Miami, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.

Our third lead piece ‘Ortolan’ is by Tom Bolton (https://tombolton.co.uk) , a writer, researcher and photographer who lives in Streatham. He is the author of four books: London’s Lost Rivers: A Walker’s Guide (https://tombolton.co.uk/londons-lost-rivers-a-walkers-guide/) (Strange Attractor, 2011), Vanished City: London’s Lost Neighbourhoods (https://tombolton.co.uk/vanished-city-2/) (Strange Attractor, 2013), Camden Town: Dreams of Another London (https://www.bl.uk/shop/camden-town/p-1151) (British Library Publications, 2017) and Low Country: Brexit on the Essex Coast (http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2018/10/low-country-brexit-on-the-essex-coast/) (Penned in the Margins, 2018). He works in urban design and policy, and has a PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, on London’s railway terminals. He leads walks and gives talks, and has written for publications including Caught By The River, The Wellcome Collection website, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian. He also
writes on theatre and music for his own website and for The Quietus (https://thequietus.com/) .

And sending you off into your own words is Naomi Paxton (http://www.naomipaxton.co.uk/) . Naomi has a portfolio career as a researcher, writer, public engager, curator, performer, magician and award-winning comedian. She trained as a performer at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). Her publications include The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays (Bloomsbury, 2013), Stage Rights! The Actresses’ Franchise League, Activism and Politics 1908-1958 (Manchester University Press, 2018) and The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays: Taking the Stage (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Don’t forget the VV rules: we ask for 50–500 words written in the space of an hour. Our deadline is 15 February, and we will publish up to 100 of the best submissions over the course of the month. We only publish one piece per writer. Please don’t submit the same piece multiple times. If you’re concerned that your submission hasn’t reached us, drop us a line at visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com (mailto:visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com?subject=Submission%20query) and we’ll get back to you asap. We don’t send you a heads-up if we do/don’t feature you – but we might tweet! So do follow us (https://twitter.com/@visual_verse) – watch out for your tweet and keep supporting each other. You can read the Submission Guidelines in full here (https://visualverse.org/about-visual-verse/) .

Now – sharpen your pencils dear writers. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…

Preti, Kristen, Lucie, Rithika and Luke

@teabolton (https://twitter.com/teabolton?lang=en)
@NaomiPaxton (https://twitter.com/NaomiPaxton?lang=en)
@trillingual (https://twitter.com/trillingual?lang=en)
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse)

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Volume 04, Chapter 11 | September 2017

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Image by Alberto Garduño

George Spender is currently guest editor for Visual Verse. George is the senior editor of Oberon Books (https://www.oberonbooks.com/) , an independent publisher in London specialising in theatre and performance.

Dear writers, readers and friends,

It’s been three months since I began my guest spot with Visual Verse, and I’m keen to end on a high. I’ve had enormous fun in commissioning some of my favourite writers, and want to thank everyone who’s taken part for going outside their comfort zones and scaring their brains into writing something.

This month’s image, El sarape rojo, is by Mexican artist Alberto Garduño, probably painted around 1918. There’s a cinematic quality and a dry, piercing mischief to this image that should inspire some great responses.

Leading the September issue, we have the inimitable David Quantick. David is an Emmy-winning television writer, author, radiobroadcaster and journalist who’s written for over fifty different publications, from the Daily Telegraph to The Dandy. He and I met at the launch of a collection of absurdist writing by the gone-but-not-forgotten-and-more-people-should-know-about-him playwright N.F. Simpson, and published the marvellous writing manual How To Write Everything. He should be supreme inspiration to writers everywhere that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. As well as his off the wall contributions to Smash Hits, he’s written some of the best television of the past few decades, including Veep, The Thick Of It, Brass Eye and Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

That same night I met David, I also met Martha Sprackland (http://marthasprackland.co.uk/) , then assistant poetry editor for Faber & Faber. Twice a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, she was also the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, and was longlisted for the inaugural Jerwood–Compton Poetry Fellowships in 2017. Her work has appeared in Poetry Review, LRB, Five Dials, New Humanist, Magma, Poetry London and many other places, and has been anthologised in the Salt Book of Younger Poets, Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam, Best Friends Forever, Vanguard, Birdbook, and the Best British Poetry series. Her debut pamphlet, Glass As Broken Glass, was published by Rack Press in January 2017, and she is currently working on a full-length collection. A non-fiction book on sharks is forthcoming with Little Toller Books in 2018.

Finally, we have Dan O’Brien (http://danobrien.org/) , an internationally produced and published playwright and poet. He and I met after his extraordinary play ‘The Body of an American’ played at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. His many awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, the Horton Foote Prize for Best New American Play, the PEN Center USA Award for Drama, and, for poetry, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Originally from Scarsdale, New York, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

All that’s left to say is thank you, farewell, and remember – the image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

George
—

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Dan O’Brien @danobrienwriter (https://twitter.com/danobrienwriter)

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