Volume 07, Chapter 12 | October 2020

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Image by Jemima Muir

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to October! This month we are going south… the South East of England that is – with our guest curator, the novelist and writing advocate Sharon Duggal. She and her selected writers are responding to this fabulous image by a hugely talented up-and-coming illustrator, Jemima Muir.

Sharon Duggal (http://www.Sharonduggal.com) grew up in north-west Birmingham as part of a large Indian family. Her acclaimed debut novel, The Handsworth Times, was The Morning Star’s fiction Book of the Year 2016 and selected for Brighton City Reads 2017. Her short stories are in several anthologies including The Book of Birmingham and Love Bites. Her second novel, Should We Fall Behind, is to be published on 22 October by Bluemoose Books (http://www.bluemoosebooks.com/ ) .

Craig Jordan-Baker (https://twitter.com/CraigJordanBak1) is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The University of Brighton. He has published fiction in New Writing, Text, Firefly Magazine, Potluck and in the époque press é-zine (https://www.epoquepress.com/ezine ) . His drama has been widely performed in the UK, including his adaptation of Beowulf and he has had dramatic work commissioned from The National Archives, The Booth Museum of Natural History and the Theatre Royal Brighton. The Nacullians is Craig’s debut novel, out now with époque press.

Alinah Azadeh (https://www.alinahazadeh.com/) is a writer, artist, performer and social activist of British-Iranian descent. She has been creating visual works for museums, galleries and across diverse communities for over 20 years and has had short stories, interviews and articles published. She is currently developing a collective writing project along the south east UK coast based on a speculative fiction story she wrote, We See You Now (https://newwritingsouth.com/we-see-you-now-alinah-azadeh) . She has just finished writing her first novel, In the Skin of a Stranger, which was longlisted for this year’s S.I Leeds Literary Prize.

If that isn’t enough talent and skill, ambition and resilience to get you started this month, we don’t know what would be. We hope you enjoy reading them, supporting their work, their small presses – and watch this space for these dedicated artists to shine – as you get inspired to get writing. Remember our community guidelines – we won’t publish you again if we feel you’ve broken them before – and our submission guidelines of 50-500 words in response to the image, written within one hour. Deadline: 15th September.

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

Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

PS. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @visualverseanthology (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) for a mini daily writing challenge.

Tweet Us
@visual_verse @Ofmooseandmen @MsSDuggal @CraigJordanBak1 (https://twitter.com/CraigJordanBak1)
@burningthebooks (https://twitter.com/burningthebooks)

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/)

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Volume 07, Chapter 11 | September 2020

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Image by Helen Marten

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

It’s always important that we break new ground on our site and this month is no different. For the first time we are very proud to bring you an image and a lead piece by the same person: 2016 Turner Prize winning artist Helen Marten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Marten) , whose debut novel The Boiled in Between is out this month from Prototype (https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/) .

Helen studied at the University of Oxford and Central St. Martins, London. She has presented solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, London; Fridericianum, Kassel; CCS Bard, Hessel Museum, New York; Kunsthalle Zürich and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, among others. She was included in the 55th and 56th International Venice Biennales and in 2016 won both the Turner Prize and the inaugural Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. Her work can be found in public collections including Tate Collection, London; Guggenheim Museum, New York and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; and Sadie Coles HQ, London – and we loved The Boiled in Between (https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/the-boiled-in-between/) .

On page two we delightedly bring you the work of April Yee (https://twitter.com/aprilyee) . April writes about colonialism, climate change, and other effects of power. Her work is in The Boston Globe, has been longlisted by Live Canon, and is a winner of the Ware Sonnet Prize. She translates from French and Spanish and has reported in more than a dozen countries before moving to London.

And our final lead writer this month is Yasmine Seale (https://twitter.com/yasmineseale) , a writer and translator living in Istanbul. Her essays, poetry, visual art, and translations from Arabic and French have appeared widely. She is currently working on a new translation of The Thousand and One Nights for W. W. Norton.

So, dear writers and readers, at the turn of this most extreme and extraordinary year of 2020, we hope you’ll take heart with us this September. Remember: the image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

PS. Follow us on Instagram @visualverseanthology (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) for a mini daily writing challenge.

Tweet Us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@yasmineseale (https://twitter.com/yasmineseale)
@aprilyee (https://twitter.com/aprilyee)
@prototypepubs (https://twitter.com/prototypepubs)
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Volume 07, Chapter 10 | August 2020

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Image by Andi Sapey and Other.Dance.Art

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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/)

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Volume 07, Chapter 09 | July 2020

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Image by Khadija Saye
courtesy of the artist’s estate

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to mark the third anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire which in 2017 claimed the lives of 72 people in London, most of them from Black, Asian and ethnic minority families, Visual Verse brings you an image and lead words by five extraordinary creators.

Our issue this month resonates with the idea of inspiration (from the Latin, spirare, “to breathe”). Inspiration – as breath, as life, as hope – and as a human right. Our world resounds with the phrase ‘I can’t breathe’, uttered by Black people who have suffered institutional brutality, including, in the UK, Jimmy Mubenga in 2014 (his head held down by G4S security guards whilst on a plane) and by Sheku Bayoh in 2015 (who suffered positional asphyxiation by the police: they sprayed CS gas in his face and held him down). ‘I can’t breathe’ were the words of Eric Garner in New York in 2014 as he died from a police chokehold, and George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, 2020 who died with a police knee in his neck. The phrase also resonates terribly with the reality of the Grenfell Tower fire. ‘We can’t breathe’ were among the last words of nursery teacher Nadia Choucair as she called emergency services from her 22nd floor flat that night. The survivors of Grenfell are still awaiting justic
e, while the official inquiry refuses to recognise the systemic racism of social inequality and institutional response as contributing to the disaster. The death of George Floyd and the anniversary of the fire fell during the lockdown for a pandemic that affects our breathing, our lungs, and is most disproportionately taking the lives of the poorest from Black and Bangladeshi minority communities (in the UK).

What is the role of art and curation here? As memorial, as reckoning. As inspiration.

Our image is from the self-portrait series, Dwelling: in this space we breathe by Khadija Mohammadou Saye with the kind permission of her estate (https://www.estateofkhadijasaye.com/) . Also known as Ya-Haddy Sisi Saye, she was a Gambian-British photographer whose work was exhibited in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017. She died aged 24, in Grenfell Tower.

The British Library’s exhibition, Khadija Saye: in this space we breathe was due to take place in Spring 2020. It was postponed, and new dates will be announced in due course.

And so to our lead writers, with respect and gratitude for their responses to this most important work…

Kadija Sesay (https://twitter.com/kadijattug) , FRSA, is a literary activist. She is the founder/publisher of SABLE litmag, SABLE litfest, and co-founder of The Mboka Festival of Arts, Culture and Sport in The Gambia. She is the editor of several anthologies of work by writers of African and Asian descent and the Publications Manager for the Inscribe Programme for Peepal Tree Press. She has also mentored several writers and judged several writing competitions. Her poetry collection, Irki (https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/irki) (which means ‘Homeland’ in the Nubian language) (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry in 2014. She received an Arts Council grant for Research and Development for her second collection, The Modern Pan Africanist’s Journey which includes a poetry and Pan-Africanism app. Kadija has received several awards for her work in the Creative Arts. She is a Fellow of the Kennedy Arts Centre of Performance Arts Management
and a Kluge Fellow. She currently has an AHRC scholarship to research Black British Publishing and Pan-Africanism at University of Brighton. She is a cousin of Sheku Bayoh.

Maame Blue (https://maamebluewrites.com) is a Ghanaian-Londoner splitting her time between Melbourne and London. She is part of Jacaranda’s #Twentyin2020 initiative. (https://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/blogs/news/twentyin2020-is-announced-and-its-quite-the-moment) Her debut novel Bad Love (https://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/products/bad-love) is available to buy online (https://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/products/bad-love) , at Foyles (https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/bad-love,maame-blue-9781913090180) and all good Indie bookshops, and as an Audible audiobook (https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Bad-Love-Audiobook/B084HLGCZY) . Her short stories and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in Black Ballad, AFREADA, Litro Magazine and The Good Journal. She also has pieces forthcoming in the Royal Literary Fund Magazine and New Australian Fiction 2020, and co-hosts Headscarves and Carry-ons – a podcast about black girls living abroad.

Karthika Naïr (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150393/remaindering-habits) is the author of several books, including the award-winning Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata (https://www.brooklinebooksmith-shop.com/book/9781939810366) , and principal scriptwriter of Akram Khan’s DESH, Chotto Desh and Until the Lions, a partial adaptation of her own book. Also a dance enabler, Naïr’s closest association has been with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet as executive producer of their works like Babel (Words), Puz/zle and Les Médusés, and as co-founder of Cherkaoui’s company, Eastman. She lives in Paris.

Ruby Cowling (https://rubyorruth.wordpress.com/) grew up in Bradford and lives in London. Her short fiction has won awards including The White Review Short Story Prize and the London Short Story Prize, and her publication credits include Lighthouse, The Lonely Crowd, Wasafiri online, the Galley Beggar Press Singles Club, and numerous print anthologies. Her collection This Paradise (Boiler House Press) was longlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

Visual Verse is a free, shared space for writers across the world collaborating in art and words. We believe that curating art and writing is an ongoing statement of who we are. We are committed to the work that making genuine, lasting equality for Black lives asks of all of us, not only as allies but as active accomplices (with thanks to The White Pube for this term).

And now dear writers, we hope you are inspired. Give yourself an hour, and 50-500 words. Make work, share it with us by 15 July.

Now, more than ever, the image is the starting point, the rest is up to you.

Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Luke

Connect with us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@kadijattug (https://twitter.com/kadijattug) / @sablelitmag (https://twitter.com/sablelitmag)
@maamebluewrites (https://twitter.com/maamebluewrites) / @JacarandaBooks (https://twitter.com/JacarandaBooks)
@rubycowling (https://twitter.com/rubycowling) / @bhousepress (https://twitter.com/bhousepress)

Resources
Justice for Grenfell (https://justice4grenfell.org/)

The Grenfell Inquiry and racism Khadija Saye IntoArts Programme (https://intouniversity.org/content/khadija-saye-intoarts-programme)

The White Pube: art statements on Black Lives Matter (https://www.thewhitepube.co.uk/blm)

Black Lives Matter USA (https://blacklivesmatter.com/ )

Black Lives Matter in arts, academia, culture, research, education (UK) (https://beinghumanfestival.org/blm-resources-for-the-humanities/)

Donations and fundraisers

Justice for Sheku Bayoh (https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/justiceforsheku/?utm_source=backer_social&utm_campaign=justiceforsheku&utm_reference=339c027a16d4d9fa1d367a92c36f3228&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=post_pledge_page_flat_v1&fbclid=IwAR2hfGzu5RcTD1dnOlTFfBa_EbGAL-9VY5-PHQd65PlMwFJ_BEnBtfGb5oA) : Five years after Sheku Bayoh’s death at the hands of Scottish police, not one officer has been disciplined let alone charged with his murder. This campaign is raising funds to support legal costs for Sheku’s family as they continue to fight for justice.

United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) (https://uffcampaign.org) : All funds donated here go towards all family campaigns for those families who are members of UFFC, which is open to all family and friends whose loved ones have been violated and died at the hands of the state.

Injustice – UV (https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/injustice—uv-1) : Injustice was named “The most important British documentary of my professional lifetime” by Peter Bradshaw, Guardian Film Critic. Director, Ken Fero was one of the founders of UFFC. This is a crowdfunder for the second Injustice film, it follows the struggles for justice of families in the UK whose loved ones have been killed by the police.
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/)

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Volume 07, Chapter 08 | June 2020

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Image from Getty Open Content Program

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

For most of us, life remains under some kind of lockdown and things feel pretty overwhelming. So, this month we have decided to focus on three good news items close to home.

Firstly, earlier this year our Deputy Editor, Lucie Stevens (http://www.luciestevens.com/) , won a residency at Varuna National Writer’s House (https://www.varuna.com.au/) in Australia. She was able to participate just before the lockdown came into force and now that she is back in Europe, Lucie has co-curated this month’s issue to highlight some of the finest voices of this prestigious residency programme. We are celebrating not just three great writers, but also Lucie who is a truly stellar writer (and VV editor) in her own right.

Our June writers are responding to a collage by an unknown artist, circa 1880, courtesy of Getty’s open content programme. This image was discovered by Judy Moore (https://twitter.com/ignatzhoch) , co-curator of our Daily Visual writing challenge on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) . So our second good news item is that Judy has been releasing a brilliant weekly web-comic, Everything is Somewhat Repaired, which is a trans non-binary memoir. This has been the best thing in our inbox during the pandemic. You can get a pre-release of the comic by subscribing to their Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tomorjudy) page.

And finally, our state-side Editorial Assistant Luke Smith has accepted a place in the University of Montana’s Fiction MFA program and has been awarded a Truman Capote Scholarship. Luke has been an incredible asset to Visual Verse, volunteering several hours each month to publish your pieces. He will no doubt be a great asset to the MFA programme too and we can’t wait to read a book with his name on the cover.

Lucie, Judy and Luke, this issue is dedicated to you.

And now to our Veruna writers. On page one we feature Audrey Molloy (http://audreymolloy.com/) , an Irish poet based in Sydney. Her debut pamphlet, Satyress, was published in 2020 by Southword Editions. Her work has appeared in international publications including The North, Magma, Mslexia, The Moth and Meanjin. In 2019 she received the Hennessy Award for Emerging Poetry, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and the An Post Irish Book Award for Irish Poem of the Year.

Vanessa O’Neill (https://www.bundanon.com.au/residents/vanessa-oneill/) is a playwright, performer and arts educator. She received a Fellowship from the University of Melbourne to write a play based upon the Germaine Greer Archive at the University. The play, The Greer Effect, has just been completed. It was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award and received the Eric Dark Fellowship for an outstanding work of non-fiction from Varuna National Writer’s House.

Lyn Yeowart (https://twitter.com/yeowartlyn?lang=en) is a Melbourne-based freelance writer, editor, manuscript assessor and mentor. Her debut novel, The Silent Listener, will be published by Penguin Random House Australia in February 2021. Set in the gothic heart of Australia, it explores themes of family secrets, revenge and the long-term ramifications of violence.

So, as June sees the midpoint of the year, what messages do you fancy sending us? You know the rules: write 50-500 words in response to our image and in the space of an hour, and send it to us by 15th June. We publish up to 100 of the best. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…

Lucie, Preti, Kristen and Luke

Connect with us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@VarunaWriters (https://twitter.com/VarunaWriters)
@Audrey_Molloy (https://twitter.com/Audrey_Molloy)
@YeowartLyn (https://twitter.com/YeowartLyn)
@ONeillVanessa (https://twitter.com/ONeillVanessa)

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/)

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Volume 07, Chapter 07 | May 2020

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Image from Getty Open Content Program

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

Last month we launched our #dailyvisual project on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) . We offer a new image every day and invite you to write 5-50 words in response (see below for a selection). It is a short, impulsive exercise designed to both cleanse the mind and entice new ideas.

The act of doing a daily call-and-response made us realise that Visual Verse is very much a pulse-taker. It is a record of events that have affected us all over the past seven years, and a collection of words that absorb our shared experiences. In that sense, we have created, together with you, a unique literary and historical artefact. It is our goal over the coming years to ensure that this publication is preserved, whether it be in print or catalogued digitally with the British Library. There is considerable work and cost involved and if you have any ideas that can help please contact our curator and Publisher, Kristen Harrison: (kristen@thecurvedhouse.com).

In the meantime, we continue to experience isolation with varying degrees of acceptance and anxiety. Whether you are trying to write, trying to read, finding it hard or easy, one thing is certain: you are not alone. Our glorious image this month is a mummy portrait (http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/8213/unknown-maker-mummy-portrait-of-a-youth-romano-egyptian-ad-150-200/) dated 150-200 AD, from Getty’s open content program. Since translation is what we are all doing these days, metaphorically speaking, we are very proud to bring you three of the world’s best literary translators, and thinkers about translation; all critically acclaimed writers in their own right.

Our first page is for Kate Briggs, a writer and translator based in Rotterdam, NL, where she teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute. She is the author of the extraordinary This Little Art (https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/this-little-art ) (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017), a long essay on the practice of literary translation informed by her own experiences of translating Roland Barthe’s last lecture courses. We love this book. It was a finalist for a Believer Book Award, and a book of the year in the Times Literary Supplement, The White Review and The Paris Review: it is now being translated into five languages. She is working on a new book, an essayistic novel titled The Long Form, forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo Editions.

On page two, we are very excited to publish Jennifer Croft, author of the moving Homesick (https://www.unnamedpress.com/books/book?title=Homesick) and Serpientes y escaleras and the co-winner, with Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk, of The International Booker Prize for Flights.

Our page three features Marilyn Booth who lived in Egypt for a number of years, and by coincidence, these portraits have long-fascinated her. She has translated many works of fiction from the Arabic, most recently Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies (https://www.sandstonepress.com/books/celestial-bodies ) , for which she and Alharthi jointly won the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, and The Penguin’s Song and No Road to Paradise, by Lebanese novelist Hassan Daoud. She is currently translating Hoda Barakat’s Voices of the Lost, winner of the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and Jokha al-Harthi’s most recent novel, Narinjah: Bitter Orange. Marilyn tells us that many years ago she wrote a Dphil dissertation at St Antony’s College, Oxford, on a young Alexandrian poet exiled from Egypt in 1919. Now, she holds the Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, Oriental Institute and Magdalen College, University of Oxford. Her scholarly interests
include gender history, Arabophone intellectual and literary history, historical translation studies, and vernacular writing. Recent scholarly books are Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History in fin-de-siècle Egypt and (as editor and contributor) Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Soon to be completed is Feminist thinking in fin-de-siècle Egypt: The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz.

So, dear readers, May is the month of speaking as if from centuries in the future. Words that might last thousands of years…

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

Kristen, Preti, Lucie and Luke

P.S. If you love this series, check out our archive (https://visualverse.org/images/) where we have work from more leading writer/translators including Maureen Freely, Haider Shabaz, Sohini Basak, Jen Calleja and more…

Connect with us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@jenniferlcroft (https://twitter.com/jenniferlcroft)
@FitzcarraldoEds (https://twitter.com/FitzcarraldoEds)
@sandstonepress (https://twitter.com/sandstonepress)
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
————————————————————
Join us every day on Instagram for a 15-minute, 5-50 word writing challenge.
Here is a selection of submissions from the past month.

Washed and refilled
the birdbath today.

Chaffinch arrived.
Took a drink.
Bathed.
Left behind
a rose-coloured feather.

Then crows.
Three of them.
Fighting.
Water level
dropped by half.

Then a pigeon.
Wings lifted for airing.
A tidal splash flooding
the tulips and
emptied the birdbath.
Another day unravelling.

by @miskybr (https://www.instagram.com/miskybr/)

The late afternoon is holding onto the day’s heat. The air smells like rosemary. They share an orange, cold from the fridge, fat segments of sunshine.

by @rach_is_reading (https://www.instagram.com/rach_is_reading/)

Today I opened my eyes, I saw the words I wanted to say shouting in my head, I set them free.

by @hazelmason4544 (https://www.instagram.com/hazelmason4544/)

It’s always the horse that dies
in wars
A noble death
for a noble beast
The men she served
share mournful
meaningful looks
and ride her spotted back one final time
from thundering craters and bloodied wire
to faraway fields and gentle hills
the memory of a sheltering roof
Home.

by @ (https://www.instagram.com/hazelmason4544/) bennybombdrop (https://www.instagram.com/bennybombdrop/)

We may applaud the cooperation; we may rebuke the crime; we often fail to understand the situation.

by @ (https://www.instagram.com/rach_is_reading/) georginaburtenshaw (https://www.instagram.com/georginaburtenshaw/)

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Volume 07, Chapter 06 | April 2020

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Image by Henry & Co.

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

What’s on your mind? Isolation doesn’t have to mean loneliness, as every writer knows. But in these world-strange times, writing takes on even more meaning – and maybe also less. Meanwhile, we try to go on. We have been here for nearly seven years, feeding your inspiration, encouraging your wordy risk-taking, bringing you a community of writers around the world all responding to the same image. So, to keep us all together over the next few weeks and months, our curator Kristen has started a #dailyvisual (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/?hl=en) challenge over on Instagram. Follow us at @visualverseanthology (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/?hl=en) to get a new image every morning. Your challenge there is to respond in the comments with 5-50 words written in 15 minutes. A little morning yoga for the brain.

Now, to this month’s prompt. Something uplifting from Henry & Co. who are masters of abstract urban photography.

As always we are shining a spotlight on some of the most extraordinary new voices, small presses and just published books we can find. We are very happy this month to focus on three writers recently published by the newly established Prototype Publishing (https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/) .

We start with Jen Calleja (https://twitter.com/niewview) , a writer and literary translator based in London. Her debut collection of short fiction, I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For, is fresh off the Prototype press. She has published two poetry collections, Serious Justice (Test Centre, 2016) and Hamburger in the Archive (if a leaf falls, 2019). Her latest translation, The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann, was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019.

Our page two is Caleb Klaces, a Birmingham-born author of the poetry collection Bottled Air (Eyewear, 2013), the chapbook All Safe All Well (Flarestack Poets, 2011) and, most recently, Fatherhood (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/11/fatherhood-caleb-klaces-review) , a novel (Prototype, 2019).

Astrid Alben (http://www.astridalben.com) is a poet, editor and translator. She is the author of Ai! Ai! Pianissimo (Arc Publications, 2011) and Plainspeak (https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/plainspeak/) (Prototype Publishing, 2019). Her poems, essays and reviews are featured in a wide range of publications, including in the Times Literary Supplement (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eighteen-seconds-to-impact/) , Poetry Review, Partisan Hotel and BBC Radio 4 Four-Thought (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08fgwyn) . Alben is the editor of three art/science anthologies published by Lars Müller Publications and was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship in 2014 for her work across the arts and sciences with PARS (http://www.parsfoundation.com) .

So, without further ado, it’s over to you. Stay safe, stay home, keep writing.

The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…
Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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Volume 07, Chapter 05 | March 2020

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Image by Ryan McGuire

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

Spring has officially sprung and we are so excited about our March offering – a wonderful, whimsical image prompt and a tie-up with the acclaimed Galley Beggar Press (https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/) Short Story Prize, 2020.

This is the fifth year of the prize, judged by Guardian theatre critic Arifa Akbar, writers Todd Ewen and Toby Litt and Sam Jordison and Eloise Millar, co-directors of Galley Beggar Press. From over 1000 entries, just three were shortlisted and we are very proud to present them here this month, writing new work especially for Visual Verse.

Feeling the spring vibes, we proffer some lightness via this quirky little image by photographer Ryan McGuire. Our lead writers have not disappointed in their responses.

First up, enjoy the work of the winner of the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize 2020, Isha Karki (https://twitter.com/IshaKarki11) , who lives and writes in London. Isha is a 2019 Clarion West graduate and a London Writers Awardee. Her work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, The Good Journal, 3 of Cups Press, and has placed in the Brick Lane Book Shop Short Story Prize and London Short Story Prize.

On page two, we present Vijay Khurana (http://www.vijaykhurana.com) , whose stories have been shortlisted for the 2019 Bath Short Story Award, the 2019 I’ll Show You Mine sex-writing prize and, of course, this year’s Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize for which he was also longlisted the last year. His creative-critical project A Little Death, featuring parodies of James Joyce and others, is available at beyondcriticism.net (https://beyondcriticism.net/) . In 2014, his children’s chapter book, Regal Beagle, was published in Australia by Random House. He has an MFA from the University of East Anglia and currently lives in Berlin.

And on page 3, we have Susanna Gendall, a New Zealand writer currently based in Paris. Her work has appeared in Sport, JAAM, Takahē, The Spinoff, Landfall, Geometry and Ambit. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and her début collection is due to be published next year by Victoria University Press.

Congratulations to these three wonderful writers and to Galley Beggar Press for another successful year unearthing the best talent and celebrating the craft of short-form writing.

So, dear writers, over to you. Remember, we need your 50-500 words in response to the image, written in the space of one hour, submitted via the website (https://visualverse.org/submit/) by 15 March. We publish up to 100 of the best.

The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…
Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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@vijaykhurana (https://twitter.com/vijaykhurana)

Find out more about the prize and read all the Galley Beggar Press 2020 Prize stories (https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/short-story-prize-tc) .
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Volume 07, Chapter 04 | February 2020

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Image by Omid Armin

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

At last, your February prompt is here. What a ride 2020 has been already. Bushfires, deadly viruses and Brexit (among other things) have welcomed us to this new decade. Still, we soldier on with our art and pens.

As you will have noticed, we are a day late because the Visual Verse team have been very busy bees. Preti is researching and writing her way around Sri Lanka, Kristen is in Australia on family business and Lucie is honing her novel at a writing residency, also in Australia. One lone literary soldier has kept Visual Verse going: our editorial assistant, Luke. Thank you, Luke. If it weren’t for you, nothing would have been published in January. Writers, if you submitted last month and have not been published there is still a chance. We have managed to get 67 wonderful pieces published and will continue with more when the whole team are back on deck. Thank you for your patience.

Meanwhile, it’s time for a new challenge.

Our image for February is brought to you by Iranian photographer Omid Armin. It’s simple and reflective, literally and figuratively.

We are so proud to highlight the talents of one of our regular Visual Verse contributors on page one this month. Ursula Brunetti (https://twitter.com/ursulabrunetti?lang=en) is the winner of the Royal Society Of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize 2019 and is a graduate of the Faber Academy. Her work has been shortlisted for the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition 2019 and has been published by Popshot, Prospect, Fairlight Books and The Willesden Herald. Ursula has written for Visual Verse since our earliest issues and she continues to produce inventive, beautifully crafted pieces. Read some of her previous submissions on her Visual Verse author page (https://visualverse.org/writers/ursula-brunetti/) .

On page two is the indomitable Christian-Wingrove Rogers (http://www.christian-rogers.com/) , storyteller extraordinaire. He tells us that, at an early age, he suffered from an acute form of institutions allergy. Being born in Britain, an institution, he was doomed. So, 35 years ago, in the interests of all concerned, he left Britain to become a traditional travelling storyteller who also happens to be a juggler and a writer. His spoken words are amazing and we are excited to see the evolution of his written words.

Our page three is occupied by London-based student Dani Owens. As some of you know, the Visual Verse team work with students in many contexts – from early years/primary classrooms to higher education and beyond. We often use visual prompts to inspire new thinking and creativity and one of our favourite exercises to use with images is automatic writing. Also known as “stream of consciousness” or “morning pages”, this involves writing continuously, without hesitation, for an allocated amount of time. The image is the starting point, of course, and sometimes we invite students to review their automatic writing and pull out the most meaningful phrase or theme from which to write a more coherent piece. Dani’s piece was written in an hour, with no writing background, and we thought it was deserving of a wider readership.

Finally, on page four we have a petite poem by Leonard Harrison (https://www.wehi.edu.au/people/leonard-c-harrison) , a medical scientist, sculptor and occasional poet. For the past 30 years, Leonard shared his life with fellow scientist and artist Margo Honeyman who taught him to appreciate the intimate relationship between art and science. Now, with Margo’s passing, Leonard is returning to poetry to make sense of things.

So, dear friends, you know the score. The image is the starting point, the text is
up to you. We are excited to see what you come up with for our February issue. Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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Volume 07, Chapter 03 | January 2020

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Image by Charles Dana Gibson / British Library

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to 2020. We made it! Today is simultaneously the end of an era and a new beginning and it feels like the perfect time to reflect on some of the amazing achievements of Visual Verse and of our writer community.

Visual Verse, first published in November 2013, is now in its seventh volume. We have published over 6700 pieces of original writing in 75 monthly issues. We have featured established writers like Ali Smith, Niven Govinden and Chika Unigwe; exciting contemporary voices including Amrou Al-Khadi, Irenosen Okojie, Paul Ewen, Eley Williams, Carmen Marcus and Enda Walsh and up-and-coming writers like Nisha Ramayya, Elieen McNulty Holmes, Ashley Hickson-Lovence and Sarvat Hasin whose work deserves to be read. We have also featured writers like Rishi Dastidar, Susanna Crossman and Angela Young, who are among a stable of Visual Verse contributors consistently producing work we hugely admire. Alongside our leads we have published you: more than 2500 individual writers from every corner of the globe. Thanks to you, Visual Verse is truly a living, breathing literary organism.

We are equally proud of our curatorial record, with 75 carefully selected image prompts from individual artists like Daniel Frost, Penny Byrne, Marc Schlossman, Hernan Bas and Hannah Coulson; world-class galleries and organisations like NASA, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Bodleian Libraries and M Leuven and partners like Creative Review who published a selection of Visual Verse writers in print. Visual Verse continues to thrive thanks to the energy, creativity and generosity of our writers, readers, artists and partners. Thank you all for an incredible few years.

So let’s begin the year with a visual prompt so bold that it sets the tone for owning 2020. The image is by Charles Dana Gibson courtesy of the British Library archive.

To inspire you even more, we have three powerful lead writers all breaking new ground with their cross-genre work. We are inordinately proud and excited to start the year with a piece by Mary Jean Chan (http://www.maryjeanchan.com/) , a London-based poet, editor and critic from Hong Kong. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Oxford Brookes University and current guest co-editor of The Poetry Review for Spring 2020. In 2019, Mary Jean was named as one of Jackie Kay’s 10 Best BAME writers in the UK as a part of the British Council’s and the National Centre for Writing’s International Literature Showcase. She came Second in the 2017 National Poetry Competition and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem twice. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2019 and won the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2018. Her debut collection, Flèche, is published by Faber & Faber and is currently shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Poetry Award. Fingers crossed she wins!

On page two, it’s an honour to publish Noo Saro-Wiwa (https://www.noosarowiwa.com) who was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and raised in England. Her first book, Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria was named The Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year, 2012, and selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week. It has been translated into French and Italian, and in 2016 it won the Albatros Literature Prize in Italy. Noo has also written book reviews, travel, opinion and analysis articles for The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, Prospect magazine, New York Times and City AM, among others.

And, we gave our final page to a writer we have published regularly over our 6 years and three months in the game! With only 48 hours notice, our page 3 lead is by Anglo-French fiction writer and essayist, Susanna Crossman (https://susanna-crossman.squarespace.com/) . She is the winner of the 2019 LoveReading Very Short Story Award and has recent/upcoming work in Neue Rundschau, (2019) S. Fischer (translated into German) alongside John Berger and Anne Carson, We’ll Never Have Paris, Repeater Books (2019), Trauma, Dodo Ink (2020), Berfrois, The Creative Review, 3:AM Journal, The Lonely Crowd, Litro and more… She was nominated for Best of The Net (2018) for her non-fiction essays, her fiction has been short-listed for awards such as the Bristol Prize and Glimmertrain. Susanna just completed her debut novel, Dark Island and is represented by Craig Literary, NY. When she’s not writing, she works internationally as a clinical arts-therapist and lecturer.

What more could you ask for? Now that the holiday season is coming to an end, it’s time to sharpen your pencils, dear writers… The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Happy New Year!

Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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Volume 07, Chapter 02 | December 2019

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Image by Mae Mu

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

Welcome to the last issue of 2019 – a year in which so much has happened upon our planet. Never far from our minds is the reality of our changing climate and the questions around it, and our future. It has been an inspiration to watch, over the course of this year, as young people rise up and confront an issue that has long been denied, silenced and ignored. As a small homage to this mighty movement, we are proud to provide a platform from which you – our amazing, global writing community – can use your art to have your say.

This month’s image is an antidote to the winter setting in for us Northern hemisphere folk. It comes to us via Mae Mu who specialises in food photography and still life.

On page 1, we have New Zealand writer Paul Ewen (https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/paul-ewen) whose books include London Pub Reviews (Shoes With Rockets) and Francis Plug: How To Be A Public Author (Galley Beggar Press) which was listed for awards including the UK Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize. His second novel Francis Plug: Writer in Residence (Galley Beggar Press) was shortlisted for the 2019 Bollinger Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. Paul’s writing has featured in the NZ Listener, Dazed & Confused, Five Dials, and until recently, he was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Greenwich, London.

Next is Shobha Rao (https://twitter.com/@ShobhaRaoWrites) , author of the short story collection An Unrestored Woman and the novel, Girls Burn Brighter. She is the winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction, and her story “Kavitha and Mustafa” was chosen by T.C. Boyle for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2015. Girls Burn Brighter has been longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and was a finalist for the California Book Award. She lives in San Francisco.

On page 3, we present Rosamund Taylor (http://www.rosamundtaylor.com/) , who won the Mairtín Crawford Award for poetry at the Belfast Book Festival in 2017. In 2019, she was a recipient of a Words Ireland mentorship and placed third for the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Agenda, Banshee, Channel, Magma, Poetry Ireland Review, and on LambdaLiterary.Org.

And finally, Tom Denbigh (https://twitter.com/@tom_denbigh) , resident of Bristol and owner of “an obscene number of books”. Tom is the first Bristol Pride Poet Laureate and a BBC 1 Extra Emerging Artist winner. He has a PhD on plant roots and crumbling soil and works on climate change policy. In his debut collection “…and then she ate him” Denbigh holds up a distorted mirror to the world to portray the bizarre and brilliant in the everyday. The book is out now with Burning Eye Books (https://burningeye.bigcartel.com/product/and-then-she-ate-him-by-tom-denbigh) and in all good bookshops.

So, dear writers, here is your last chance for the year – get your writing boots on and wade through the fake snow in your mind. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…

Happy December, wherever in this crazy world you are.

Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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Volume 07, Chapter 1 | November 2019

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Image by RUDE London.

Dear writers, readers and friends,

VISUAL VERSE IS SIX!

Yes we have made it through our teething and toddler years and now we are in big school. Our labour of love project has reached the grand old age of SIX and we are proud, humble, grateful and downright amazed. We couldn’t have made it without all our readers, writers, leads, supporters and some very special guest curators who took over and brought new voices to us.

THANK YOU!

And we must also thank our amazing team, based in the UK, Germany, USA, and sometimes Australia, who work around babies, books, dogs, higher education courses, day jobs and night jobs to bring the site to you each month and publish and tweet your work. We are proud to be a free resource for writers and readers all over the world.

For our sixth birthday edition, we’re bringing you a piece of graphic art by the tenacious, insanely talented duo that is RUDE London (https://www.thisisrude.com/) . Their work is big and loud and bold, setting the tone for this auspicious birthday issue. In response, we open with a line-up of some of the most exciting, avant-garde writers working today – all equally brilliant, equally unique.

Our page one piece comes from Chika Unigwe (https://twitter.com/chikaunigwe) , a Nigerian writer whose work is trend breaking. Her novels include Night Dancer and On Black Sisters Streets. She has written about climate change for the Guardian, feminism for the White Review and was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in African writing. Her latest book is a collection of short stories, Better Never Than Late (https://cassavarepublic.biz/product/cassava-shorts/?v=3a52f3c22ed6) , out now from Cassava Republic.

Our second page is live from Linda Mannheim (https://www.lindamannheim.com/) , the author of three books of fiction: Risk, Above Sugar Hill and This Way to Departures, just out from Influx Press. Her work has appeared in magazines in the US, UK, South Africa, and Canada including Granta, 3:AM Magazine and Catapult Story. Eimear McBride said that Linda’s stories ‘provoke and abide like a slap’. Originally from New York, Linda divides her time between London and Berlin and is working on Barbed Wire Fever, a literary project that explores what it means to seek and provide refuge.

On page three, we bring you work from Glen James Brown (https://twitter.com/glen_j_brown?lang=en) , whose debut novel Ironopolis (https://www.parthianbooks.com/products/ironopolis) – about the collapse of industry and social housing in Teesside, and its impact on community, culture and folklore – was called ‘nothing short of a triumph’ by the Guardian. It was also shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, as well as longlisted for the Portico Prize. He comes from County Durham, but lives and writes in sunny Manchester.

And to really jump off the deep end, we complete our launch with a piece by Yara Rodrigues Fowler (https://yararodriguesfowler.com/) , a British Brazilian novelist from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019 in the UK and USA. Yara was named one of The Observer’s nine hottest-tipped debut novelists of 2019 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. She is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe, for and by Latin American women. She’s writing her second novel now, for which she received the John C Lawrence Award from the Society of Authors towards research in Brazil.

So, dear writers and readers, it’s time for some birthday indulgence – treat yourself with some high-quality reading and then sharpen your pencils… the image is the starting point, the rest is up to you,

Love,
Preti, Kristen, Lucie and Luke

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