I could argue about having the lightest skin in my family, though I think my mother would disagree. It’s not clear from the sepia-toned photograph that she’s as light-skinned as ...
Ali knows the effects of words on people and situations and he uses them with care and style. Words are tools of poets, writers, priests and statesmen. These artisans of ...
I have had this unexplained tingling in my left fingers every night for some time. So in hopes of finding quick answers, I consulted Dr. Google. Continue Reading ...
Three years ago, I took up meditation. It was for all the reasons westerners do; I wanted to look deeper into my “self,” to find better ways to deal with ...
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of how nice it would be, if I was here in this most romantic of cities with a love interest instead ...
Love is possible despite imperfections. That is what comes through loud and clear when I think of them now. They were two strangers thrown together in an arranged marriage. ...
“So, would you like to go and shoot a cow with a rocket launcher?” Continue Reading “Please do not walk through the mass grave”
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Back when summer holidays meant months off school, I used to be first up in the house. I’d steal down the staircase, recklessly yank those living room curtains apart and ...
Author John Wilson Foster takes an elegiac look at Northern Ireland through the prism of amateur birdwatching. Continue Reading Northern Ireland: A Place of Birds, Not Riots ...
“My mum takes me to Staples to buy a desk, it has a drawer that throws itself open, a place to keep files – I have no files. I have ...
“I prayed the night before my cancer diagnosis, and then I prayed again the night after. It was during the darkness of those long months in hospital—robbed of my vitality, ...
Tracey Iceton considers the thorny question of whether creative writing can be taught, and finds that the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. Continue Reading Teach Me ...
Brent van Staalduinen explores the ramifications of discovering three of his students with hashish in Kuwait, a conservative Muslim country that still has the death penalty for trafficking. ...
Linda Fawke pulls back the curtain on the very British tradition of the risqué postcard. Continue Reading I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside…
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Tatyana Movshevich recalls growing up in chemical-ravaged Dzerzhinsk, Russia, and the creative wasteland that exists there. Continue Reading I Am From Dzerzhinsk
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Michael Teasdale’s stay in Hong Kong is peppered with strange encounters. Continue Reading On a Visa Run
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In today’s Essay Saturday, Tom Wood recalls his mysterious teacher, who turned out to be 1960s music journalist Penny Valentine. Continue Reading Penny Valentine
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Michael Spring takes a look at two often undervalued novels. Continue Reading In Defence of the Unsubtle – Another Look at Kidnapped and Kim
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“I was notorious for finishing other people’s drinks. I was an Equal Opportunity Drunk: no drink was too strong, no drink was finite, size did not matter—the only thing that ...
“I feared that if I stayed under London’s eaves for much longer that I’d become, not a Muswell Sally or Finsbury Park Flo – yesterday’s scandal and corroded-toe pigeons floating ...
