Image: Molly Baber

Dear writers, readers and friends,

As summer yields to autumn, our thoughts turn quiet and we invite you to ‘travel to the land of malady, and back again,’ (a line from our October lead, Susana Moreira Marques). This month we’re all about memory, weight, the things we leave behind. Of course this leads to discovery – coming across treasures in the attic, faded but potent – what stories will they tell? What secret histories are woven into old blankets, and whispered into the wood of abandoned chairs?

Susana Moreira Marques’ extraordinary first book Now and at the Hour of Our Death (http://www.andotherstories.org/book/now-and-at-the-hour-of-our-death/) , translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, was published by & Other Stories (http://www.andotherstories.org/) in September. It won an English PEN award for its beautiful musing on turbulent lives coming to an end in Planalto Mirandês, Trás-os-Montes – a remote region in the northeast of Portugal. Reminiscent of Anne Michaels’ disturbing and moving Fugitive Pieces, we can’t recommend Susana’s raw, poetic work enough.

We are also delighted to publish one of our Visual Verse patrons, the journalist and poet Cathy Galvin. Cathy founded the Sunday Times EFG short story award and Word Factory (http://www.thewordfactory.tv/site/) , our favourite UK literary salon and promoter of short fiction. Her beautiful sequence of sonnets, Black and Blue (http://melospress.blogspot.co.uk/) , is published by the Melos Press – be prepared to call your mothers after reading… and if you can’t – well, this ‘crown’ of works will remind you that you aren’t alone.

Our third spot this month is filled by Dimitra Xidous (http://www.dimitraxidous.com/) , whose poems have appeared in Room, The Stinging Fly, and The Penny Dreadful. She was a finalist in the 2014 Malahat Review Open Season awards, and her poetry was shortlisted for The Bridport Prize (2013). Her musical, immersive collection Keeping Bees is published by Doire Press (2014). Originally from Ottawa, she currently resides in Dublin.

All our writers come together to respond to a dramatic and dishevelled image by British artist Molly Baber (http://mollybaberphotography.weebly.com/) . Molly lives and works in a small town in Brandenburg, just outside of Berlin, so it is no surprise that her recent ‘Abandoned’ series (from which this image comes) feels like some kind of post-modern archaeological dig. It uncovers a history that is rugged, fraught and beautiful all at once and we are so excited to see what you will make of it.

So dear writers, if you live in a part of the world where the leaves are going red, or if you live in place where summer is on its way – now is the month to pause and reflect on the past, take stock of the present, and try to imagine whatever is coming next.

Awaiting your words at www.visualverse.org/submit.

Happy writing.

Preti and Kristen
https://www.visualverse.org

Published in association with the London Borough of Waltham Forest (https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/Pages/index.aspx)

Dear writers, readers and friends,

We are thrilled to launch the September issue of Visual Verse in partnership with the London Borough of Waltham Forest, drawing on their rich archives to present an image of London’s past.

This unique borough is in the grip of swift gentrification – from Hackney and Leytonstone to Walthamstow and beyond. Change at this pace can sometimes be unsteadying, but this is where we see initiatives emerge that are especially designed to keep communities bound tightly. One such initiative is the Poetry Room in Leyton Library, launched this year to offer a place for local writers to meet each other, share their writing and work in a supportive environment.

To celebrate this, and the borough’s present and past commitment to arts and culture, we invited four writers with local ties to lead this month’s issue. Our visual prompt comes from Vestry House Museum and depicts a holiday scene from years gone by – when the world was still big and mysterious. We are thrilled with the diversity of responses this beautiful image evoked in the writers.

We kick off with Linda Mannheim (http://www.lindamannheim.com/) whose most recent book, Above Sugar Hill (Influx Press), was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and was a #readwomen2014 pick of the year. Linda’s stories are widely published, and she is also the author of the novel Risk (Penguin).

Bren Gosling (http://www.brengosling.com/) recently completed his first novel, The Street Sweeper. Represented by MBA Literary Agents, Bren’s work has been published in many anthologies and magazines, including Decongested Tales and Words and 4’33” Magazine, and has been performed by Liar’s League Hong Kong.

Ruth Goldsmith (https://ruthgoldsmith.wordpress.com/) is working on her first novel. Her short stories and their characters often take her by surprise.

Runner-up in the Hysteria Writing Competition, Clare Archibald (https://twitter.com/archieislander) was chosen to read at Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Storyshop for emerging writers in 2014. Clare is currently working on a novel, as well as a number of cross-arts collaborations. Her audio/text installation in the Project Afterbirth art exhibition, which opens in October 2015, will tour internationally for three years.

Throughout the month we will feature more Waltham Forest locals including Ana Brothers, Graham Clifford and Bill Foster. In the meantime, dear writers, what will you make of our image this month? Will it ignite a memory in you, or draw out your sepia tones?

Awaiting your words at www.visualverse.org/submit.

Preti and Kristen
with Josephine Regis, Cultural Programme Officer for Waltham Forest
https://www.visualverse.org

Image: Jordan McQueen

Dear writers, readers and friends,

July’s Visual Verse (https://www.visualverse.org) is a tribute to summer, to the heat of imagining, to the land. Our image is by photographer Jordan McQueen (https://unsplash.com/jordanfmcqueen) and as we bask in its midsummer glory, we also question what land means to us and how we think about it – politically and poetically. This question is becoming more and more important as new states come into being, climates change, and borders, cultural and political, are being redrawn. For some, our July image might represent a future utopia or the escape of holidays, for others, nostalgia – the land is part of all of us, inextricably linked to our sense of who we are.

We are thrilled to lead this month with work by Nikesh Shukla (http://www.nikesh-shukla.com) , whose new novel Meatspace, has been lauded by the Guardian, the New Statesman, BBC Radio 4, The Independent on Sunday, and the Daily Mail. Which, as he says, is funny, because they usually hate immigrants. Nikesh’s debut novel, Coconut Unlimited was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2010 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2011. His writing is moving and provocative, just what we need to keep us from a summer stupor; this piece attests to his skill in making art out of politics in a postcolonial age. His short stories feature in Best British Short Stories 2013, Five Dials, The Moth Magazine, Pen Pusher, The Sunday Times, Book Slam, BBC Radio 4, First City Magazine and Teller Magazine. He has written for the Guardian, Esquire and BBC 2. He has, in the past, been writer in residence for BBC Asian Network and Royal Festival Hall.

Our other lead writers are short story writer Janet H Swinney (http://www.janethswinney.com) and poet Seán Hewitt (http://www.seanehewitt.com/) . Janet was born and brought up in the North East of England, and in a previous incarnation, she worked as an education inspector. Her story, The Work of Lesser-Known Artists, was one of two runners-up in the London Short Story Competition 2014; The Map of Bihar was editor’s choice in the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose 2012, and appeared in Best New Writing 2013 (Hopewell). She has also had work short-listed in the Fish International short story competition. The Queen of Campbeltown, about a little lad’s struggle to be re-united with his mother, was a finalist in the Earlyworks Press competition 2014 and will appear shortly in the EWP anthology. Her stories often play out in a landscape that features poverty, thwarted aspiration, personal resilience and black comedy. She is currently awaiting the publication of her first collection of
short stories by Circaidy Gregory Press.

Seán Hewitt (http://www.seanehewitt.com/) has been published in POETRY, The Poetry Review and PN Review, amongst many other magazines. He was awarded Arts Council England funding in 2014 to work towards a pamphlet collection. He is one of the Aldeburgh Eight, 2015 and you can hear him read at the Aldeburgh Festival in November.

In literary news this month, Kumkum Malhotra (http://www.gatehousepress.com/2015/06/gatehouse-new-fictions-1-kumkum-malhotra-by-preti-taneja/) , the debut novella by our editor, Preti Taneja, is published by Gatehouse Press and has already received much deserved praise for “its beautifully sculpted surfaces” (Maureen Feely) and for being “Inclusive and deeply engaging” (Stella Duffy). Please diarise 13th October at Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge and joins us for the launch. In the meantime, the Resurgence Eco Poetry Prize (http://www.resurgenceprize.org/) launches this month at the Curious Arts Festival in the UK on July 17th. Perhaps the inspiration for your entry will start with our July image?

What will you make of our image this month? What will it inspire in you and in your writing? We can’t wait to see.
Visit www.visualverse.org (https://www.visualverse.org/) to see, read and submit your writing to this month’s Visual Verse: Anthology of Art and Words.
https://www.visualverse.org
Preti and Kristen

Image: Sigrid Calon
Guest Editor: Kate Nic Dhomhnaill

Dear writers, readers and friends,

June’s Visual Verse celebrates digital storytelling. How does living in our oh so digital world affect or influence the ancient ritual of telling stories? Our image this month is a departure and will certainly challenge writers to test their visual literacy skills in interpreting this image. After reading our fantastically imaginative responses from our lead writers, we are so excited to see what you all come up with.

Our image this month comes from Dutch artist Sigrid Calon (http://www.sigridcalon.nl) , who builds her artistic language out of pure and geometric pattern. She is motivated by the desire to make new connections and to look differently at what we take for granted. Endlessly curious, her work reveals a wide-ranging curiosity and continuing research into questions of identity. Currently, Calon has turned to publishing, with To The Extend Of / | & -, which has brought her to Art Book fairs in London, Basel, Milan and Berlin to institutions such as MoMA and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Our lead writer this month is Kit Lovelace (http://www.romanticmisadventure.com/) , a writer and journalist from London. He is the author of Romantic Misadventure – an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure story about what a terrible hash he consistently makes of his actual, real-life love life. He also runs a live storytelling night, the similarly titled Romantic Misadventures, where people are invited and encouraged to discuss their love lives.

Our next writer this month is Alan Trotter. Alan comes from Aberdeen and is the winner of the Sceptre Prize for emerging writers. He has been published by McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and New Writing Scotland, and recently completed the first draft of Muscle, a novel. Hiswebsite (http://greaterthanorequalto.net) is far more interesting than you might expect.

Next up is Mary O’Donoghue. Mary’s short stories have been widely published in the USA and Ireland: Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Irish Times, Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, and elsewhere. She recently completed her first short story collection. One of its stories was long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. She is currently writing her second novel. Her first novel, Before the House Burns, appeared from Lilliput Press in 2010. She serves as Fiction Editor at the journal AGNI.

Our fourth writer is Angela Readman. Angela’s stories have won The National Flash Fiction Competition, and The Costa Short Story Award. Her story collection Don’t Try This at Home was recently published by And other Stories and was long listed in the Frank O’ Connor Award, and short listed in The Saboteur Awards.

So, dear writers, whatever will you make of our image this month? What will it inspire in you and in your writing?

Kate Nic Dhomhnaill (Guest Editor)
with Preti Taneja and Kristen Harrison
https://www.visualverse.org

Image: Megan Archer
Guest Editor: Kate Nic Dhomhnaill

Dear writers, readers and friends,

May’s Visual Verse (https://visualverse.org/) is a special edition dedicated to the human condition: our nature, behaviour and minds. We have invited three contemporary thinkers to respond to our image, using their analytical, critical and philosophical backgrounds. In their respective professions, this month’s lead writers interpret the big questions and ideas that men and women have been asking for centuries, and now they bring this thinking to Visual Verse.

British academic philosopher, Simon Blackburn (http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/people/teaching-research-pages/blackburn) , who is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, half-time Research Professor at UNC Chapel Hill, and Professor at the New College of the Humanities, has written our lead piece this month. Simon is known for popularising philosophical theories and making them accessible and engaging to a wider audience. Having published a long and varied list of works, including Think, Truth: A Guide, The Big Questions: Philosophy, and most recently Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self Love, Simon is one of the most exciting philosophers of our time. His website (http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/) is also very entertaining.

Our second lead writer, Richard Kearney (http://richardmkearney.com/) , is an Irish academic philosopher and public figure, who holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College. He also currently holds the Chair of the Institute for Critical Philosophy at The Global Center for Advanced Studies. Kearney’s work looks at the philosophy of the narrative imagination, hermeneutics and phenomenology. He is the author of over 20 books on European philosophy and literature, including two novels and a volume of poetry. Among his best known works are The Wake of the Imagination, On Stories, Poetics of Imagining, and Debates in Continental Philosophy.

Next on our list is Fariyal Wallez (http://www.letyourbodytalk.uk.com/blog.htm) , writer and creativity coach. Fariyal publishes a monthly blog on her personal website, where she writes on creativity and the psycho-somatic relationship within the context of familial, societal and cultural narratives. She lives in Lyon, France and is currently writing her first novel.

Our wonderful image for May comes from Berlin-based painter and illustrator, Megan Archer (http://cargocollective.com/meganarcher) , whose personal works aim to be visually seductive but oddly disconcerting, vacuous or even repulsive in terms of subject matter. Her interest in the human form, animals and colour has informed much of her work and provided her with a starting point for most of her paintings and drawings. Her fascination with 1970s and 80s fashion and lifestyle photography has been a continual influence on her aesthetic, beginning in art school. She also has a long-held interest in portraiture.

So, dear writers, whatever will you make of our image this month? What will it inspire in you, and in your writing?

Visit www.visualverse.org to see, read and submit your writing to Visual Verse: Anthology of Art and Words.

Kate Nic Dhomhnaill (Guest Editor)
with Preti Taneja and Kristen Harrison
https://www.visualverse.org

Image: Georgina Cope
Guest Editor: Kate Nic Dhomhnaill

Easter falls early this year, just in time for the launch of April’s Visual Verse. Whether you go all out for the traditional post-lent roast lamb or keep it low key with take-away, Easter is a time to gather, relax and feast with family and friends. In keeping with this, our April edition of Visual Verse is an homage to the art of eating and the rituals that come with it. With family in mind, we want to share and celebrate our April editions with our Visual Verse kin. Without the inspired, instinctive words of all our writers, we would have nothing to publish. So, dear writers, this very special edition of Visual Verse is dedicated to you.

This month’s lead pieces come from four of our most dedicated writers. First up is Avalina Kreska, a flash fiction writer, comic maker and poet living on a remote island in the North Sea. Her ongoing novel The Adderstane fits “somewhere in the middle of everything.” Next we have Amsterdam-based Scottish writer, Flash Fiction Editor for Litro Magazine and a Senior Judge and Contributing Editor for Mash Stories, Jennifer Harvey. Joining them is Susan Gray, a Science Fiction playwright and poet, who is in her third year of a Creative Writing PhD at Royal Holloway. Her play SUM and monologue collection Notes from Other Worlds were published by Playdead Press in 2014. Last but in no way least we have new writing from Luciana Francis. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Luciana graduated Goldsmiths University, specialising in Anthropology & Media and now lives in East London with her two muses, her artist husband Anthony and their five month old son Tiago.

Our image this month comes from foodie photographer Georgina Cope (http://www.georginacope.co.uk/) . Georgina’s simple approach to photography is to communicate well, be creative, be constructive and of course, have fun with the project; principles we think align perfectly with ours at Visual Verse. Georgina has worked on projects with Jamie Oliver, University of Hertfordshire and Lorica Independent Insurance Brokers to name a few. Outside photography, Georgina is interested in food, cooking, design and printing processes.

So, what will you make of our image this month? A hearty meal, a dysfunctional family, an awkward silence?

Preti and Kristen
https://www.visualverse.org

Image: Dominic Goodman
Guest Editor: Kate Nic Dhomhnaill

In honour of the infamous St Patrick, celebrated on March 17th, we dedicate this issue to Ireland and its enticing list of extraordinary emerging writers. Our lead author, Sara Baume (https://sarabaume.wordpress.com/) , is arguably one of Ireland’s brightest literary stars, having won the Davy Byrnes Short Story Award in 2014 and named Hennessy New Irish Writer of 2015. She has recently released her debut novel spill simmer falter wither with Tramp Press. Joining Sara are fellow Ireland-based writers Róisín Agnew, Claire-Louise Bennett and Daniel Gray. Irish Times journalist, Róisín Agnew, is editor of Guts Magazine, a new and brilliantly designed litmag out of Dublin; Claire-Louise Bennett’s collection of flash fiction, Pond, will be published by The Stinging Fly in April 2015; and Daniel Gray is a journalist and editor at large for Totally Dublin.

This month’s visual prompt is a wonderful, irreverent image from artist Dominic Goodman (http://dominicgoodman.com/photo/) . Goodman is a Fine Art graduate from Central Saint Martins and works in a variety of media covering photography, film, music and art while also co-running music labels YYAA Recordings and Hallso. His photography often focuses on unoccupied spaces, raising questions over events that may have occurred, or perhaps will occur, outside of the confines of the image. Perfect for you, dear writers.

So, what will you make of our image this month? A lonely ass and an empty pool – can you see beyond the confines of this image, just as our artist intends?
Visit www.visualverse.org (https://www.visualverse.org/) to see, read and submit your writing to this month’s Visual Verse: Anthology of Art and Words.

Preti and Kristen
https://www.visualverse.org