Volume 09, Chapter 02 | December 2021

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Image by Monica Silva
Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to our final newsletter of 2021!

December marks the festive season for many people, and a time to reflect on the year that has passed. It’s been another year of wide-spread uncertainty, anxiety and social isolation – themes that have run through many of the submissions we’ve received. And as the pandemic flexes its muscles again, the opening of Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb seems apt, ‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade?’

We hope you will find some light here, dear writers.

When we offer our prompt on the first of each month, we hope to receive exciting new pieces that grab our attention and lodge themselves in our hearts. And we hope that, by publishing those pieces, we help share your voice with the world. But what we also aim to offer is a reason for you to carve out an hour for yourself, connect with your creativity and experience flow. Because that’s where joy, healing and self-actualisation can surface.

So, here’s our December gift to you, not a flying reindeer but a floating horse’s head. This image, entitled Horse with a Name, is the creation of Italian-based Brazilian photographer Monica Silva (https://www.msilva.photography/) , whose work explores the impact that existential and cultural daily life has on our psyches.

Opening our December issue is a piece by Anna Jacobson (http://www.annajacobson.com.au) that speaks of this impact too. Anna is a writer and artist from Brisbane, Australia. Amnesia Findings (https://www.uqp.com.au/books/amnesia-findings) (UQP, 2019), her first full-length poetry collection, won the 2018 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. In 2020, Anna won the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing (Open Creative Nonfiction), was awarded a Queensland Writers Fellowship, and was shortlisted in the Spark Prize.

Page 2 offers a powerfully visceral poem by Hannah Bent (http://www.hannahbent.com) . Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hannah completed her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art and Film from Central Saint Martins School of Art in London. She undertook further study in both directing and screenwriting at the Australian Film Television and Radio School and has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney. She won the 2013 Ray Koppe Young Writers Award for her debut novel as a work in progress. Her debut novel When Things Are Alive They Hum (https://www.ultimopress.com.au/hum) was published this year and has been described by Trent Dalton as a ‘gift’ that has ‘changed the way I’ve been going about my days.’ The Australian reviewed her novel as ‘a wise, wondrous celebration of life.’

Our third piece, penned by Alastair Hesp (http://www.alastairhesp.co.uk) , explores what isn’t on view. Alastair is currently completing a Poetry MA at The Manchester Writing School. His work has been featured in anthologies and journals such as The Verve Poetry Press, Acid Bath Publishing, The French Literary Review and Broken Sleep Books. As a poet with bipolar disorder, he uses poetry to go beyond the language of condition. In addition to formal publications, his work includes interdisciplinary projects in live/improvised performances. He is currently in production on a poetic art installation and a dance performance in Copenhagen around a sequence poem, in collaboration with Kant Fabrik (https://www.instagram.com/kantfabrik/) .

Before you venture off on your own creative paths, take a dawn walk with Shehnaz Suterwalla (https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/dr-shehnaz-suterwalla/) on page 4. Shehnaz is a writer, critic and curator who teaches at the Royal College of Art, London. Her forthcoming book, Two Friends (And Other Stories) is a double memoir that speculates into the future, co-authored with Michelle Jana Chan (https://linktr.ee/michellejanachan) , who was a lead in our November issue.

Remember, dear writers, if you need to gift yourself with more pockets of writing-induced joy, you can submit a micro-piece in response to our daily visual prompt (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) on Instagram. But for now, we hope this noble steed will inspire you to craft 50-500 words, written within an hour. Submissions close midnight (UK time) on December 15th.

Wishing you all a safe and happy December.

The image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.

Lucie
with the VV team: Kristen, Preti, Isabel, Tam, Nahda, Jordan, Aimee and Anna.
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Volume 06, Chapter 01 | Writing Competition Results

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Image by Hannah Coulson

Dear writers, readers and friends,

This month, we switched things up and asked you to submit a piece of writing in just 24 hours for a chance to be selected as one of our lead writers. We received over 100 submissions and from these we could pick just three. It was intense, to say the least! With the help of our stellar judges – Bernardine Evaristo, Sam Jordison, Andrew Motion, Eloise Millar and Philippa Sitters – we managed to get 100 down to a longlist of eight, then pick the final three. We would like to thank all of those who submitted such a spectacular array of work and congratulate both the winners and the long- and shortlisted writers:

Winners
Christopher John Eggett – It was decided to fold up my town
Renee Fisher – Twisted Bridges
Suzanne Ushie – Envy

Shortlist
Rishi Dastidar – Spectacle
Emmanuella Dekonor – In the Pink Wash of British Accra
Sharon Jones – Rememberings
Frank McHugh – Elculo
Andrew Strickland – F-Words

Longlist
Valerie Bence – Shades of Pink and a Lighthouse
Alexandra Davis – Is This a Diaorama?
Pat Edwards – Cut Out
Elizabeth Gibson – Leaving Manchester
Motl Lazarus – Misdirections
Hiromi Suzuki – The Quintet of the Holiday Inn Cafe
Jordan Trethewey – Collage Town
Carole Webster – I Opened You Gently Like Paper and Your Skin Made Sense to Me

About the Winners
Our headliner, Renee Fisher, grew up in New Zealand and the UK, studied English Literature and Visual Arts (ideal combo for Visual Verse) and has spent the last few years living in Moscow and Riga, teaching English to children and adults. She now lives in Prague with her partner and baby daughter. Of her writing, Renee said, ‘It has mostly been confined to diaries – a furtive and relentlessly private pursuit – and it’s only recently that I’ve begun to shape it into stories and poems, though they still borrow heavily from my diary habit. I’ll forever be in thrall to first person narratives; journals, travelogues, letters, notes scribbled on scraps of paper, confessions and dreams.’ We are thrilled that the judges have chosen writing from someone who is only just starting to put her work into the world.

Our page two lead is Christopher John Eggett, a writer and poet from Cambridgeshire. He will send you poetry every Friday in his literary newsletter Etch To Their Own (https://medium.com/etch-to-their-own) , where he scratches away at literature’s subtext. Chris is working on a full length collection of poetic essays including Essay on Falling {insert poem here} (https://softcartel.com/2018/08/06/essay-on-falling-insert-poem-here-what-we-can-see-from-here-by-christopher-john-eggett/) , and occasionally writes short stories about accidentally having a lobster for a boyfriend (https://burninghousepress.com/2018/03/30/the-boyfriend-pinch-by-christopher-john-eggett/) . His work has appeared in Euonia Review (https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/you-are-good-for-poetry/) , The City Quill (https://medium.com/cjeggett/poetry-featured-in-the-city-quill-455ab0a7c688) and Furtive Dalliance and can be found upcoming in Bone & Ink and Human Repair Kit. He tweets as @CJEggett
(https://twitter.com/CjEggett) and you can read more about him on his website https://cjeggett.co.uk/

And on page three we are delighted to publish Suzanne Ushie, who was born and raised in Calabar, Nigeria. In 2012, she was awarded an international scholarship to undertake the MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia, where she made Distinction. Her work has appeared in OZY, Saraba, Fiction Fix, Conte Online, Lunch Ticket, Brittle Paper, Gambit: Newer African Writing and elsewhere. She has received support from Hedgebrook, Writers Omi at Ledig House, Ox-Bow School of Arts and The Whiting Foundation. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

About the Judging
The long-longlist was made from a day of reading through over 100 submissions, getting that down to a longlist, and then a shortlist of eight. The shortlist went to our judges over the weekend, and we made sure they were judged blind, without bylines. When we got the results in, most of the judges had overlaps in what they chose, with slight variation. With a very scientific points system, we tallied up the winners. And if we had published four pieces, or five, our two very close runners up would have been in there – In the Pink Wash of British Accra by Emmanuella Dekonor and F-Words by Andrew Strickland – you can read them on the site now.

Our judges were extremely impressed by the quality of the writing. Philippa Sitters from DGA literary agency said:

“These submissions were so accomplished, I find it hard to believe they were turned around within an hour. They’re a display of genuine talent and it was incredibly fun to read such an array of pieces inspired by the single visual. Congratulations to all those who entered.”

Sam Jordison from Galley Beggar Press said:

“I was impressed by these submissions. More than that, I enjoyed them. There are serious ideas and intentions behind them all, but the thing that most struck me was how good it is to see writers having fun with the language and ideas. There are creative sparks flying around their words… The three Galley Beggar choices exemplified that spirit of adventure. They felt fresh and exploratory. They were also written with wit and humour and grace – and because of that the emotional punches they packed were all the stronger.”

All of your writing this month is in response to a wonderful, quirky collage by London-based Scottish artist Hannah Coulson (https://www.hannahcoulson.co.uk/) , an illustrator who loves experimenting with shapes and colours. When she’s not busily illustrating, Hannah teaches at the Royal College of Art in London. She made this work without any intention and we love that it has come full circle on Visual Verse, where we ask you to respond without any intention.

So, dear writers, with so much excellence still to publish, we’re so glad to be five and thank you very much for being part of the amazing community that is Visual Verse.

Happy Birthday! The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Kristen, Preti, Lucie
(And welcome to our newest team member, volunteer Editorial Assistant, Luke!)