Volume 10, Chapter 08 | June 2023

Posted on by
A cat poses in the sunlight against two regal looking portraits of other cats

Image by Erica Marsland Huynh
Dear writers, readers and friends,

This month’s issue is dedicated to community. Community and connection have many benefits for us humans and this is particularly true for artists and writers. Somehow, amid the noise, we find ways to build communities that enable us to share our work safely and grow with our fellow artists. Whether it be a writing group with friends, a Friday night book launch or a summer retreat in a remote castle, artist-led events build vital networks and help us all to keep momentum.

When Preti, Pete and I started Visual Verse almost ten years ago, we could not have imagined the community we have today. It is diverse in every way, it is global and it is boundlessly generous. This is how I came to choose our three leads for June. All three writers are involved in running and/or attending writing groups, facilitating poetry workshops and giving their time to other community-based activities. I have seen them support each other with shout-outs on Twitter, encouraging both exploration and celebration of each other’s work. It is heartwarming and it reflects the essence of Visual Verse.

Being the month of the Gemini, we must also acknowledge the other side of the artist’s community-building efforts. Artists also seek solitude. Sometimes it’s physical solitude (a writing retreat, for example) and sometimes mental solitude (wearing headphones in a cafe). However we find it, we manage to be in the world and with ourselves at the same time. Your prompt this month, a portrait of a rather sanguine feline captured by photographer Erica Marsland Huynh, seems the perfect visual for this artistic dichotomy. Cats have a way of needing company and needing only themselves simultaneously. Somehow it works.

Kicking off our written responses is the fabulous Cáit O’Neill McCullagh (https://twitter.com/kittyjmac) , an archaeologist, ethnologist, and educator in higher education and community settings. Cáit started writing poems at home in the Highlands just a few years ago and over fifty of these are published in print and online, including in Northwords Now, Poetry Scotland, The Storms, Howl: New Irish Writing, Ink Sweat & Tears and here at Visual Verse. In 2022, she was a co-winner of Dreich’s Classic Chapbook Competition for ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ co-authored with Sinead McClure. Her first full collection will be published by Drunk Muse Press in early 2024. She continues to outrun her diagnosis of cancer identified in February 2022. You can find out more about her via her Linktree (https://linktr.ee/caitjomac) .

Andrew Stickland (https://twitter.com/AndrewStickland) lives in Cambridge, UK, where he writes poetry and fiction and also helps to run the Angles Writing Group (https://twitter.com/AnglesWriters) (more on that below). His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, and he has three previously published poetry collections. His first novel, The Arcadian Incident, was published earlier this year and two follow-ups, Escape to Midas and War Between Worlds, are due out in September, and then early next year, all from Lightning Books.

And on page 3 we present Kate Coghlan (https://twitter.com/Kate_Cogs) , a freelance writer/editor with an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths. Her work has been published by Mslexia, Loft Books, the Dulwich Festival, Spillwords and the Personal Bests Journal. This is her third appearance in Visual Verse and she is also a member of the Angles Writing Group with Andrew Stickland.

The Angles Writing Group (https://twitter.com/AnglesWriters) , based in Cambridge, has a mission to get as many of their members as possible into print, as often as possible, and we are very grateful that they regularly encourage members to try our challenge. At last count we had a dozen or so Angles members published with us. A lovely example of the tentacles of writing communities reaching far and wide.

There you have it, dear writers. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Kristen
with Preti, Isabel, Lucie, Ashish, Zaynab and Wes

Find the VV crew on socials:
Visual Verse (https://twitter.com/pretitaneja/)
Kristen Harrison (https://www.instagram.com/kittyharrison/)
Preti Taneja (https://twitter.com/PretiTaneja)
Lucie Stevens (https://twitter.com/LucieStevens_)
Ashish Kumar (https://twitter.com/Ashish_stJude) Singh (https://twitter.com/Ashish_stJude)
Zaynab Bobi (https://twitter.com/ZainabBobi)
Wes White (https://twitter.com/archaeologyBoy)

Volume 07, Chapter 10 | August 2020

Posted on by

Image by Andi Sapey and Other.Dance.Art

Home

Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to the high holiday month of August, when we lighten your mood and invite you to transform with us into beings that might, if we wish hard enough, grow out of our human limitations and fly.

Today’s image is one of freedom within confinement. It is a collaboration between British photographer Andi Sapey (https://www.andisapey.co.uk/gallery/) and Other.Dance.Art, in which two dance artists explore the restriction of space and time during lockdown. In response to this wonderful image we have some very special lead writers…

On page one, we bring you Otis Mensah (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKKXT6kV3PhtKhsuqThWsH1nq7lsONrcd&feature=share) , an alternative hip-hop and spoken word artist, and Poet Laureate of Sheffield, UK. He has described his work as a means of challenging dominant models of masculinity, which he believes suppress the discussion of emotions, with negative consequences for mental health. As a hip-hop artist, Mensah has performed at the BBC Music Introducing Stage at Glastonbury Festival and his new book of poems, Safe Metamorphosis (https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/safe-metamorphosis/) is out now from Prototype Publishing. Follow Otis on Twitter (https://mobile.twitter.com/otismensah) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/otismensah/) .

On page two, please welcome Maria Fusco (http://mariafusco.net) , a Belfast-born, Glasgow-based writer and Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee. She writes fiction, critical and theoretical texts and is published internationally and translated into ten languages. She has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship (2019) and a Jerwood Creative Catalyst, and is a Hawthornden Fellow. She has also been an invited Writer-in-Residence at Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and Whitechapel Gallery, London. Her most recent work is: ECZEMA! (2018-19).

Our page three is reserved this month for one of independent publishing’s most versatile voices: Heidi James (https://twitter.com/heidipearljames) . She is the author of So the Doves, Wounding and The Mesmerist’s Daughter. Her new novel, The Sound Mirror (https://bluemoosebooks.com/books/sound-mirror-0) , is published by Bluemoose Books this very month of August. Be sure to check it out.

And finally, be inspired with Arji Manuelpillai (http://www.arji.org ) , a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. For over 15 years Arji has worked with community arts projects nationally and internationally. He was named the Jerwood/Arvon mentee for 2019/20. Recently, his poetry has been published by magazines including Ink Sweat and Tears, Strix, The Rialto and The Lighthouse Journal. He has also been shortlisted for the BAME Burning Eye pamphlet prize, The Robert Graves Prize, The Oxford Prize and The Live Canon Prize. Arji is a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and London Stanza. Arji’s debut pamphlet Mutton Rolls (http://www.outspokenldn.com/shop/muttonrolls) is published with Out-Spoken Press.

So dear writers, as the summer of 2020 reaches is wide and wild sky, we hope you’ll write and read with us, tweet with us, and stretch your writing arms with us. Remember, the image is the starting point the rest is up to you…

Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

Tweet Us!
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@otismensah (https://mobile.twitter.com/otismensah)
@fuscowriting (https://twitter.com/fuscowriting)
@heidipearljames (https://twitter.com/heidipearljames)
@theleano (https://twitter.com/theleano)
Start Timer (https://vclock.com/timer/#countdown=01:00:00&enabled=0&seconds=3600&title=Visual+Verse%3A+One+image.+One+Hour.+50-500+Words.+)
Submit (https://visualverse.org/submit/)

** #DailyVisual
————————————————————
Don’t forget you can join us every day on Instagram for a 15-minute, 5-50 word writing challenge.
Visit Visual Verse Anthology on Instagram now… (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/)

Home


mailto:visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com
https://www.facebook.com/visualverseanthology

Volume 03, Chapter 04 | February 2016

Posted on by

Image by Grant Wood
Guest Editor: Eley Williams

Dear writers, readers and friends,

This month we are preoccupied with the Trump-a-thon. Donald’s quest continues and we find ourselves wondering: how is it that one man’s strange ideas are able to form a whole belief system? How is it that such a strange system can intoxicate so many believers? And who, exactly, are these believers?

With this weighing on our minds, there was only one possible image for the February issue: Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ (part of the Chicago Institute of Art (http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/6565) collection). This 1930s work of eerie wonder has become an icon of American art, not least because it is beautifully painted and fabulously creepy all at once. We bestow this image upon you, our writers, to bring forth your words.

This month we are thrilled to welcome a new guest editor, British writer Eley Williams (http://www.giantratofsumatra.com/) . Twice shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize, Eley also edits Jungftak, a journal for contemporary prose-poetry, works for independent publishers Copy Press, and was recently appointed co-editor for fiction at 3:AM magazine. She has sustained three dictionary-based injuries so far this year, but regrets nothing.

Eley will edit Visual Verse for the next few months and kicks off her commissions with a group of the UK’s most exciting poets, writers and artists:

John McCullough (http://twitter.com/JohnMcCullough_) , whose first collection of poems, The Frost Fairs, won the Polari First Book Prize in 2012. It was a Book of the Year for The Independent and The Poetry School, and a summer read for The Observer. His second collection, Spacecraft (http://www.johnmccullough.co.uk/index.php/Spacecraft) , will be published by Penned in the Margins in April 2016.

Scottish writer Helen McClory (http://twitter.com/HelenMcClory) had her first flash fiction collection, On the Edges of Vision, published by Queen’s Ferry Press in August 2015 and won the Saltire First Book of the Year (http://www.saltiresociety.org.uk/awards/literature/literary-awards/scottish-first-book-of-the-year/) . There is a moor and a cold sea in her heart.

Helen Ivory (http://twitter.com/nellivory) is a poet and visual artist. Her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection is the semi-autobiographical Waiting for Bluebeard (May 2013). She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and is tutor and Course Director for the new UEA/Writers Centre Norwich creative writing programme. Fool’s World (http://www.gatehousepress.com/2015/12/fools-world-a-tarot-helen-ivory-tom-de-freston/) , a collaborative Tarot with the artist Tom de Freston, is out now from Gatehouse Press and she is working on a book of collage poems for Knives Forks and Spoons Press.

Prudence Chamberlain (https://twitter.com/PrueChamberlain) is Poet in Residence at Surrey University. Her work has been published in 3:AM, Poems in Which, HYSTERIA, By&By Magazine and Jungftak, while her collection I sit on your face in parliament square is forthcoming with Knives, Forks and Spoons Press. She is currently working on a Disney collaboration, House of Mouse, with poet SJ Fowler, and writing a book on empathy for Copy Press (http://www.copypress.co.uk/index/) .

Wendy Choi was born and educated in Korea, currently reading English at University of Cambridge. She likes to pickpocket words and thoughts from texts around her and exploits the difficulty of writing in a second language.

So there it is. Read, look, ponder, write. Not necessarily in that order.
The image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.
Kristen Harrison and Preti Taneja
with Eley Williams

Home


mailto:visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com
https://www.facebook.com/visualverseanthology