Catkins by Yirou (Eva) He
‘The room was silent save for the rustling sound of clothes while Ting slowly undressed.’
The Truth is a Dangerous Landscape by Susmita Bhattacharya
‘Her hand is trembling when I take hold of it. Everything begins to make sense now.’
They Come to Me Now and Then in The Dying by D.P. Strickland
‘They come to me when my pain is at its worst: a yawning bear, black throated.’
I Do Nothing Wrong by Sveta Lukyanova
‘Heterosexual women don't feel what I feel when I look at your pictures.’
Girlhood Lessons by Lydia Mathis
‘She didn’t have that tenderness for me that the boys got in abundance.’
An Even Greater Woman by Victoria Male
‘Apparently no one wanted to invest in who the Stanford computer science department had anointed as the frontrunner for producing machine consciousness.’
We Shall be People of God by Meridian Payseno
‘One minute, a student would be walking to class or eating a baggy of trail mix, and the next minute she would explode into a screaming gulf of fire.’
Safe Home by Maeve Keane
‘The radio is talking about the spate of recent attacks. There is no link between them, other than they are all unprovoked acts of violence against women.’
Willemina van Gogh Paints Portraits in Reverse
‘The Rotterdam canals are painted an early-evening blue, and the last dry leaves tremble on their twigs.’
Dead Daisies by Emily Black
‘Of all the reasons to return to my hometown, I never thought speaking to the police would be one.’
Porcelain by Tosin Okewole
‘As you walk side by side in silence, you feel the urge to tell her how much you love her.’
The Imagination Game by Natalya Edwards
‘Soon, she’s all cracks. Soon, she crumbles. I’m left behind with a mess of rubble and dust.’
Time Travelling by Katie Isham
‘The sunlight prickles my eyes; I wonder when I last ventured out.’
Love is Blue by Rebekah Skochinski
‘Poets love love, do they not? They love describing, deconstructing, cornering, hi-jacking, naming, owning.’
The Witching Hour by Aisling Walsh
‘They have come to find joy, create explosions and reach ecstasy. The circle throbs with the pulse of shared expectations.’
Laurence(s) by Kim Poirier
‘My memory isn’t a yard of film I can roll out and re-examine at will; it’s amorphous, immaterial, and in a state of active decay.’
Her Body is Not Hers by Nana Afadua Ofori-Atta
‘She didn’t look like herself, though that couldn’t be helped; the amount of makeup on her face was enough to morph anyone’s features.’
When the Sea Splits Open by Claire Westbrook
‘People watch from the shore, waving and laughing like nothing is wrong. Like she belongs in the sea.’