I She sits in the seat beside me, with beautiful hands, long tapering fingers and clean, almond fingernails. Before we take off, she sends a text. ‘Sorry couldn’t speak was reading a story.’ I look for kisses, but there aren’t any.   Her hair is red and falls down her back; fine hair that is […]

It’s Thursday and I’m in the baby changing facility at Waitrose eating a no-butter flapjack. The air smells like baby wipes and there is a small, bright spotlight that draws out my shadow as I move beneath it. It’s not a bad place to eat in secret while I mentally guess replacement ingredients for butter. […]

Her name was Mrs Martinez, Mrs J. Martinez, and when she said the ‘J’ part, her eyes squinted, just to let you know that when you addressed her, you’d better say it, too. She was my third-grade art teacher. She was chic. With almost every other sentence, she mentioned she was from France, even though […]

I wasn’t good at constructions. Orestes used to be amazing. The trap was a sieve borrowed from his grandmother without her knowing about it. A small stake, made of wood he had cut from the floor of the abandoned house right next to his family’s. Two ropes from his mother’s laundry. If I remember correctly, […]

He sounded different in the confines of the car. The rain on the windshield threatened to drown out his voice, a sound like the tapping of a thousand fingers. ‘So.’ Ellen shoved her schoolbag down between her legs. It didn’t have any of her school things in it. Instead it had changes of clothes and […]

Emma Penruddock is a short story author, whose stories have been shortlisted and longlisted for a number of short story competitions.  She lives with her quite grown-up children in a deserted cottage just outside the garrison town of Youghal, County Cork.   Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers […]

Jasper Cairns is an amateur short-story author based in the East Midlands who very much enjoys bananas. Though he also has been known to eat oranges and apples, bananas would definitely be his favourite. He also makes short films.   Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you […]

Linda Scotto is from New York, New York.  Some of the places her work has previously appeared in are Oyez Review, Redivider and Bayou Magazine. She is currently at work on her first fiction novel.   Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and […]

Athena Gaga, MSc (Dist), MA, BEng, is the author of Mehen, the Oracle and the Time Movers (2019) and Iliad Shattered (2022). She lives in Greece with her son, a young adult with special needs, and her parents.   Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to, and if so, how many […]

Fiona J. Mackintosh was born in New Jersey to expat Brits who brought her back to the old country and raised her in a Scottish fishing village. Aged 30, after a short career in journalism in London, she went back to the US with just two suitcases and no prospects, and has lived there ever […]