Esmee Wright Anthony Oliveira’s Queer Retelling of the Bible. . Dayspring, Anthony Oliveira, (Strange Light, 2024), 432 pages, $25 . . When naming queer icons from the Bible — an activity carried out by a fairly small group of people — an equally small number of names tend to crop up. There is of course Saint Sebastian: masochist, pretty boy and inspiration to innumerable artists. Occasionally David is mentioned, though more often in association with the later Michelangelo than with his (homosexual, -social or otherwise) biblical partner Jonathan. The kiss of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane ..read more

Nicola Healey Absence . Absence, Ali Lewis, (Cheerio, 2024), 72 pages, £11  . Absence, Ali Lewis’s debut collection, is intriguingly set around ‘nothing’ – or ‘nothings’: ‘Losses, vacua, gaps’ – the negative life force and void that surrounds us, and is even within us, much as we try to deny it, ward it off or think we have filled it. Like an artist who draws the negative space (or ‘air space’) around and between objects rather than the objects themselves – and through doing so makes us requestion what constitutes the ‘real’ subject – Lewis fixes his gaze on demarcating the nothing that s ..read more

Leanne Brown Moving Out . I slept on the living room sofa, just as I had the first night I moved in, under different circumstances and far less Gordon’s gin. Perhaps if I cling to the furniture, embedding myself into it, I won’t have to leave. My other housemates vacated the day after our graduation. Not me, prolonging my return home is essential. The large plastic boxes scattering the house were only filled this morning, now stacked by the front door. Accompanying them is another box, similar to in size but destined not for my childhood bedroom but a charity shop. Unused notebooks, jumpers ..read more

Erik Martiny Between Fiction and Reality with Amélie Cordonnier Could you give us a brief outline of your career? Yes, well, I went through the French prep school system, specializing in philosophy and then I went on to become a freelance journalist. I now write reviews and novels. My first novel Cut came out before the MeToo# movement, so you could say it anticipated that to some extent, since it focuses on a man’s verbal violence towards his wife. I wanted to write about a form of violence that leaves no marks on the body or the page. It’s the story of a woman who has trouble leaving he ..read more

Holly Pollard Temporary Shores . The shape and sound of the edge. Felt, in the mesmerising back and forth. In the naff hopes of coin push arcade games, the swelling chest. . Of change, pennies and wishes. Of redeeming a fiver badly spent. Sea-side attraction. The dregs of the mermaid’s purse turn over themselves. . And again – I arrive to set out my fears, to still rot in watery luck. To shore against, my winnings slippery and wet. . . . Holly Pollard is a writer and artist from Dorset, UK, currently living in Mexico City. Her work has been featured in lit.202, TERRIBLE magazine, and The ..read more

Deborah Nash Biba: A Legacy Lost and Found The Biba Story, 1964-1975 at The Fashion and Textile Museum, 22 March – 8 September 2024. . . Between 1963 and 1975, the seemingly unstoppable phenomenon that was Biba went from mail-order to boutique shop to department store to a seven-storey colossus, followed by the label’s sudden and complete disappearance from London’s Kensington High Street. I never went to a single Biba shop nor owned a single Biba item yet I always seem to have known the name, synonymous with rock, glamour, and all things 1960s. . A new exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Mu ..read more

Katie Tobin Phoebe Stuckes on her chilling debut, Dead Animals Dead Animals by Phoebe Stuckes is published in hardback, audio and eBook by Sceptre, £16.99. . . Speaking more broadly, I’d like to know what it’s been it’s been like making the jump from poetry to prose. Have you always written prose?  I didn’t always. I wrote some prose during my master’s, but not a lot. Deciding to write the book was a very conscious decision, but it took a lot longer as there was an element of ‘Can I do this?’ involved. I think when you’re writing a first novel, part of it is teaching yourself to write it ..read more

Katie Tobin Can Sun’s Playful yet Profound Sculptural Universe Bruises at Mandy Zhang Art, 12 April – 24 May 2024. . . Your work is described as focusing on the absurdity of the world and the relationship between people by recontextualizing everyday objects into playful sculptures. Could you talk about what initially inspired you to explore this theme in your work and how you go about balancing each of these elements? The driving force of my creativity originated from my childhood, which was filled with arguments and eventually led to the complete disintegration of my family. The extreme repre ..read more

Franz Kafka (trans. Tania and James Stern) The Refusal . Our little town does not lie on the frontier, nowhere near. It is so far from the frontier, in fact, that perhaps no one from our town has ever been there; desolate highlands have to be crossed as well as wide fertile plains. To imagine even part of the road makes one tired, and more than part one just cannot imagine. There are also big towns on the road, each far larger than ours. Ten little towns like ours laid side by side, and ten more forced down from above, still would not produce one of these enormous, overcrowded towns. If one do ..read more

Elliot C. Mason Rachael Allen’s God Complex God Complex, Rachael Allen, (Faber, 2024), pp. 88, £12.99 , For an English poet who lives and works in England, Rachael Allen’s poetry feels uncannily exilic. Her writing removes itself from its own voice, standing aside and pointing us towards the wounded, silent body where violence accumulates. Before the opening section, Allen’s latest collection, God Complex, begins with this peculiar removal: . I look out through stained glass pressing my neck for religious lumps. . This restrained voice is growing prophetic signs. Her own body is not the flesh ..read more