Image by Matt Boyce

Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to 2019! Yesterday, we launched our January issue in the quiet aftermath of new year celebrations. Your visual inspiration is an image by comic artist and illustrator Matt Boyce (http://mattboyce.com/mattboyce/) that fits the general ambience of the moment, at least for us. This is the first time we have featured an image with any kind of words incorporated and we are excited to see what you come up with.

We are delighted to welcome The Whole Kahani (http://www.thewholekahani.com/) , a group of female voices from South Asia (who are all now based in the UK) to our lead slots. Their new collection, May We Borrow Your Country, with an introduction by our editor, Preti Taneja, will be published by Linen Press and launched at Waterstones Gower Street on January 26th, 2019. Before you come along to that, we bring you a taster of their work…

Leading us into the new year is Kavita A. Jindal, co-founder of The Whole Kahani and author of the poetry collection Raincheck Renewed (Chameleon Press). The manuscript for her debut novel won the Brighthorse Novel Prize 2018. Kavita’s short stories, poems and essays have appeared in anthologies and literary journals in the UK and around the world and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Zee TV and European radio stations. She serves as Senior Editor at Asia Literary Review.

Our second lead is Reshma Ruia, a co-founder of The Whole Kahani, and fiction editor at Jaggery Lit Magazine. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, was described in The Sunday Times as “a gem of straight faced comedy”. Her second novel, A Mouthful of Silence was shortlisted for the 2014 SI Leeds literary prize. Reshma’s poetry and short stories have appeared in various British and international journals and anthologies as well as broadcast on Radio 4. Born in India but brought up in Italy and now living in Manchester, her writing reflects the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.

Mona Dash is the author of Untamed Heart (Tara India Research Press 2016), and two collections of poetry, Dawn-Drops (Writer’s Workshop 2001) and A certain way (Skylark Publications 2017). She has a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the London Metropolitan University. Her short story collection ‘Let us look elsewhere’ was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2018. Her memoir, A Roll of The Dice: a story of love, loss and genetics will be published by Linen Press in 2019. Originally from India, she lives in London.

Radhika Kapur’s work as a writer/Creative Director in advertising has won awards at Cannes, One Show, Asia Pacific Adfest and Clio; she also writes short fiction and scripts. Her writing has appeared in the Feminist Review, Poem International and The Pioneer. She won third place in the Euroscript Screenwriting Competition (2015) and was longlisted for BBC Script Room (2017) and the London Short Story Prize (2016). She has recently completed an MA in Screenwriting from Birkbeck, University of London.

Born in Bombay, Shibani Lal moved to the UK in 2000. She was runner-up in the Asian Writer prize and was recently longlisted for the Bristol Prize and Cambridge Short-Story Prize. Shibani has worked in the City for over a decade; she’s also an open-water swimmer and recently swam across the Bosphorous from Asia to Europe.

Deblina Chakrabarty is a freelance writer from Bombay who relocated to London seven years ago. She’s written for various publications including the Times of India and DNA and is primarily interested in the chasm between genders, cultures, cities and lovers that form open terrain for curious examination. By day she flirts on the fringes of storytelling by working for international distribution at a major Hollywood studio.

Nadia Kabir Barb is the author of the short story collection, Truth or Dare. Her work has been published in Wasafiri, The Missing Slate, Open Road Review and Six Seasons Review, and she was the winner of the Audio Arcadia short story competition. She has worked in the health and development sector in both Bangladesh and the UK.

So with a new year and all the uncertainty it brings, you can be sure of one thing – Visual Verse will keep supporting new voices, celebrating successes, and inspiring you with avant-garde art. And, thanks to our Twitter habit, we will continue to bring your submissions into conversation with each others’ across the world.

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

Happy New Year.

Kristen, Preti and Lucie
with Editorial Assistants Luke and Rithika