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Featuring James Miller Penny Metal Alex Wheatle Nat Akin Bethan James Rachel Holmes Naomi Jackson

November 2015

Litro Magazine 52

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November 2015

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#147 Space • November 2015

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#147

Litro Team

Editor-in-Chief Eric Akoto Online Editor

online@litro.co.uk

Fiction Editor Precious Williams precious.williams@litro.co.uk

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Contributing Interviews Editor Mia Funk interviews@litro.co.uk

Arts & Lifestyle Contributor Isabel Prendergast artsandlifestyle@litro.co.uk

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Story Sunday onlinefiction@litro.co.uk

General inquiries: contact info@litro.co.uk or call 020 3371 9971.

1-15 Cremer Street, Studio 21.3 London E2 8HD Litro Magazine believes literary magazines should not just be targeted at writers themselves, or even those with a particular interest in literature, instead Litro believes in reaching the general reader whether they be a commuter, someone browsing in bookshop or in a bar or cafĂŠ to meet a friend.

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Contributors

Litro Magazine • #147 • Space • November 2015

James Miller James Miller is the author of the acclaimed novels Lost Boys (Little, Brown 2008) and Sunshine State (Little, Brown 2010) as well as numerous short stories. He is currently senior lecturer in English literature and Creative Writing at Kingston. www. jamesmillerauthor. com @jmlostboys

Nat Akin

Penny Metal Penny Metal is a DJ, graphic designer and insect photographer.

As a graphic designer she works within the fields of music and urban conservation.

As an insect photographer she has spent the past 5 years surveying the insects of Warwick Gardens in Peckham.

Nat Akin's short fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, Ecotone, and Tampa Review, and most recently, his story "Reno" received the Florida Review's 2015 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award.

A prior recipient of one of two annual fellowships awarded in Literary Arts by the Tennessee Arts Commission, he lives in Memphis, where he directs the story booth literary space for Crosstown Arts.

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Alex Wheatle Alex Wheatle was born in 1963 to Jamaican parents living in Brixton but spent most of his childhood in a Surrey children’s home. He returned to Brixton in 1977 where he founded the Crucial Rocker sound system and performed his own songs and lyrics under the name of Yardman Irie. He spent a short stint in prison following the Brixton uprising of 1981. Following his release from prison he continued to write poems and lyrics and became known as the Brixtonbard.

Naomi Jackson

Bethan James Bethan James received the 2015 New Buds Award from New Writing South, and was a winner in the Word Factory’s Fables for a Modern World competition. She was short listed for the Benjamin Franklin House Literary Prize and her work has been published in several anthologies.

Bethan is the Marketing & Publicity Manager at an independent publisher near Cardiff.

Amy Shackleton

Rachel Holmes Currently based in London, Rachel has been writing creatively for most of her life. She reviews art and theatre for The Metropolist and plays as much capoeira as possible. Rachel's other great passion is Philosophy, which she has studied for five years. Find out more about her work at: racheladelineholmes. wordpress.com.

Cover image by Canadian artist Amy Shackleton. A time-lapse video of her brushless process has reached over one-million viewers worldwide.

Shackleton holds a BFA from York University and is represented in Canada (Elaine Fleck Gallery) and the USA (Mike Wright Gallery). www.amyshackleton.com November 2015

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Naomi Jackson is author of The Star Side of Bird Hill, published by Penguin Press in June 2015. The Star Side of Bird Hill was long-listed for the Centre for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and selected for the American Booksellers Association’s Indies Introduce and Indies Next List programs. The book has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, NPR.org and Entertainment Weekly, which called Star Side “ a gem of a book.”

Publishers Weekly named Jackson a Writer to Watch.

#147 • Space • November 2015

EDITOR'S LETTER Welcome to Litro #147 the Space issue, in this issue we explore the world’s ever evolving urban social landscape. We’ve got art, stories, essays, cartoons, interviewsexamining the ways in which individuals and groups carve out their own spaces, dare to take up space and make their built environment(s) distinctly their own.

We open the issue with three personal essays, from three Londoners. In Notting Hill by James Miller, James reminisces on the lost counterculture leanings of Notting Hill, and how the neighbourhood has transformed into a sanitised and perhaps soulless mecca for the rich.

In Penny Metal’s The We’evils of Peckham’s Gentrification, Penny looks at the gentrification of Peckham through the lens of a watchful weevil.

Our cover artist is Canadian artist Amy Shackleton, whose paintings portray urban life at it’s best, demonstrating ways that we can work with nature rather than against it. Her unique way of painting— Amy drip paints with squeeze bottles to build layers of organic lines (by spraying water and rapidly spinning each canvas) and straight lines (using a level) has won her fans the world over with over a million online views to her work to date.

Brixton-born Alex Wheatle MBE—with his essay Brixton he asks why nobody seems to be considering the futures and housing needs of young, working-class Brixtonites.

Nat Akin takes us transatlantic with his story Driving Range, set in a claustrophobic and rapidly changing Memphis neighbourhood.

In Diminishing Returns, Bethan James reflects on how a familiar space can suddenly become an alienating one.

We have stories from writers, from a diverse selection of cities—from Peckham to Memphis, discussing how the issues of space and the rapid change of their neighbourhoods have affected them and their communities.

Rachel Holmes' story The Eyes is set in a primeval world and explores the themes of space as alienation, physical distance and becoming.

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Finally, Brooklyn-based novelist Naomi Jackson, whose dazzling debut novel The Star Side of Bird Hill is set in Barbados and Brooklyn, discusses the pros and cons of the gentrification sweeping through her predominately West Indian neighbourhood.

those with a particular interest in literature, instead Litro believes in reaching the general reader whether they be a commuter, someone browsing in a bookshop or in a bar or café to meet a friend.

If you're a teacher, who works with young kids, or a parent to those aged 13-18— have them enter their words into our annual IGGY & Litro International Young Writer’s Prize, aside from being good for them, there’s cash money to be won! You “how and where do you find the space to can find out more details by turning to breathe, to grow, to create and simply be?” the back of this issue.

If you’ve picked up the magazine for the Let us know what you think—we need a first time and read this far—out of curiosity letters page—but only exaggerated flatto find out what Litro means—the name tery, please. After ten years we’re still trying Litro was made up by putting the 'Lit' into to have fun with words.

We do not give answers to the housing crisis or the crisis our generation is facing with the ever-dwindling urban city-scape, the issue does however ask and answer the question:

We hope this issue inspires and is read as an invitation for you to go take on to continue the narrative of Space.

Metro—we've since learnt the word has different meanings in different languages for instance in Brazil the word Litro is the slang for a lighter, amongst kids smoking weed—Pass the Litro G. We like to think of Litro as a small free book of ideas that give city dwellers an alternative to the daily free sheets such as the Metro—Litro is aimed at not just writers themselves, or even

Eric Akoto Editor in Chief

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LETTERS PAGE And indeed it is. But for future issues we would also like to have your letters.

Please send to: 1- 15 Cremer Street, 21.3 Hoxton, London E2 8HD

Iain Robinson favorited a Tweet you were mentioned in Jul 3: The latest from my @LitroMagazine column More Writing About Writing: Tomorrow’s Censored Novels—http://tinyurl.com/ pjgko3m via @LitroMagazine

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Miriam Foley ‫@‏‬Miriam_Foley Oct 13: @LitroMagazine @JinnyKohHong This was a brilliant, sad read and has reminded me of my long-lost 'Mexican family'

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Conrad Williams favorited your Tweet Oct 14: @LitroMagazine' autumn members book club read is Conrad William's Dust & Desire start Oct 26th @Salavaria @ TitanBooks #crimestories

Precious Williams, Geneva Writers Group and Space Cowboy ScifiRetweeted you Oct 14: Great piece by @DameDeniseMina on Urban Development- Glasgow's Red Road Flats http://gu.com/p/4d8hj/stw #Space #Urbandevelopment

Annahell ‫@‏‬AnnabelleCsyn Oct 16: Today is a good day. Look out for my #FridayFlash on @LitroMagazine soon!

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Sayantan Ghosh ‫@‏‬sayantansunnyg Oct 16: Thank you @LitroMagazine, for accepting a piece for publication as a #FridayFlash.

Hope the macabre mood works with the readers

Lochlan Bloom, James Miller and Dead Ink Retweeted you Oct 18: Help our friends at @DeadInkBooks bring bold new voices to print with their initiative #PublishingTheUnderground: http:// publishingtheunderground.com/

November 2015

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Build a strategy and a platform that engages readers to succeed in both the traditional and independent markets.

Become an authorpreneur with City’s new 10-week short course, The Authorpreneur, launching January 2016.

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Litro Magazine 13

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The leTTerpress shAkespeAre

A publishing lAndmArk All of Shakespeare’s works printed letterpress in individual leather-bound volumes. ¶ since the first folio in 1623 there have been countless editions of shakespeare’s plays, yet none surpasses the restrained beauty of the letterpress shakespeare – a project that has taken The Folio society, britain’s leading publisher of fine books, eight years to complete. ¶ individual editions of all of shakespeare’s works, graced by pure and elegant typographic design, printed letterpress on thick, mould-made paper, and bound in leather with hand-marbled boards. ¶ Only 300 copies of each volume of the letterpress shakespeare are available to order.

To find out more go to www.foliosociety.com/letterpress or email letterpress@foliosociety.com

LITRO COMIC STRIP I see the promised land Words by Arthur Flowers Art by Manu Chitraker

LITRO | LITRO 16 | 16

17 | LITRO 17 | LITRO

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November 2015

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James Miller @jmlostboys

ESSAY ONE

NOTTING HILL Ever since I wanted to live in London, I wanted to live in Notting Hill. Now, I’m not quite sure why the area has such an appeal.

I

by James Miller

consider myself a Londoner. I was born in St Thomas’ hospital and I’ve lived in London for the last twenty years—first in Shepherd’s Bush, then Tottenham, Elephant and Castle, Earl’s Court, Whitechapel, Elephant and Castle (again!), Stockwell and, for the last four years, In Notting Hill;first on Ladbroke Grove and now Westbourne Grove.

If I belong anywhere, it’s London—indeed, it’s always with a sense of relief that I return to the city. Even I have to tell them bookshop doesn’t exist within London it’s the west where I’ve spent the most time, where I’ve worked in various jobs and where, I suppose, I feel most at home. Within west London, Notting Hill always had the biggest attraction for me. Ever since I wanted to live in London, I wanted to live in Notting Hill. Now, I’m not quite sure why the area has such an appeal—sure, it’s a convenient location and a beautiful, self-contained neighbourhood—but that doesn’t seem to be the entire reason. Although born in Lambeth, I grew up in the boring confines of the commuter belt, first Surrey and then Kent: homogenous, affluent, suburban places where almost everyone is white and votes Conservative. Comfortable places that seem sheltered from the wider troubles of the world. Notting Hill, in contrast, always struck me as a place where things happened and—perhaps more so—where the people who made things happen actually live. But Notting Hill is not quite what it was and my own connection to the area is a transitory one—much as I might want to put down roots here, I simply can’t afford to. Like most of central London, Notting Hill has shifted from being a space of genuine diversity to become another domain for the super-rich—in which a bland, globalized cosmopolitanism has replaced genuine heterogeneity.

Back in the nineties, when things were different, I was first seduced by Notting Hill during long walks around west London. There was a flourishing counter culture among the hippie shops selling incense, trinkets and psychedelic clothing, the record shops booming out dub bass lines and soulful grooves, the independent bookshops and antique dealers with everything from vintage prints to silver spoon collections to World War One gas masks; and the rest, market stalls selling everything from rare fruit and veg to knock off household goods, a scene made all the more dynamic due to the mixed population of Caribbean and Irish, Moroccans, Portuguese and long-time white working class locals, everyone rubbing along together happily enough, wealthier residents to the south, poorer to the north. Notting Hill really seemed to encapsulate everything that was unique and exciting about London.

It seemed to me the perfect urban environment—edgy, diverse, bohemian—but also manageable, with a sense of community, with lovely architecture and delightful streets. It was a place where I could wander for hours, soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying the vibe.

Nowadays, everything about Notting Hill that first drew me to Notting Hill is still present and correct. Take a walk down Portobello Road and one could be forgiven for thinking Notting Hill is in rude good health. Certainly, the Portobello is always heaving—albeit with tourists more than locals. At the weekend tens of thousands of visitors flock to the market in a slow shuffle of crowds that stretches continuously November 2015

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ESSAY TWO

THE WE’EVILS OF PECKHAM’S GENTRIFICATION So I sit here, on my log, watching the changes with a sinking heart.

by Penny Metal

My

name is Platyrhinus resinosus. I am a weevil and I live in a log in a small park in Peckham. I moved into a council log when a grant was given to spruce up Warwick Gardens a few years ago. It suits me well as I have my own cramp-ball fungus to feed on, though I do have to contend with upstart spiders who weave their webs over my patch with absolutely no regard for my personal space. My home is in the Log Quarter of Warwick Gardens, an area of high-density log housing, populated by beetle larvae, woodlice, earwigs, spiders, solitary bees and wasps. We have a buzzing little community here. Yes, we have our problems—the mining bees have a hard time in the summer when they have to fend off parasitic wasps wanting to inject eggs into their nests; the beetle larvae cause havoc to the log interiors, and the woodlice make quite a noise at night with all their chewing. And spiders can be a nuisance, especially for the flies. All in all we try to get on with each other. But things are changing.

New species have moved into the area, with fancy names like ‘mottled shield bug’, ‘mosaic leafhopper’ and ‘southern oak bush-cricket’. They have taken over the lilac bushes, conveniently positioned to look down on the more common species in the park. This area, next to the football pitch, is the main food boulevard with its ivy bars, thick long grass, lush blackberry bushes and the big-leafed showy lilac bushes. It’s the trendiest place to be and full of pop-up food stalls offering a range of artisanal kebabs of plump aphids and shield bug nymphs, alongside cocktails of dandelion nectar, ragwort pollen and craft yarrow stem juice.

It used to be relatively quiet here, but since the council stopped mowing a patch of grass and let it run wild with flowers it’s become really noisy with visitors swarming in from the surrounding areas to party. The hoverflies tell me stories of ladybirds running amok, bees drunk on pollen and crickets chirruping loudly all day long in a desperate attempt to find someone to mate with. This is the place to see all the well-heeled fashionable insects: the brightly coloured butterflies, sleek whizzy dragonflies, jewel wasps in their fancy metallic clothes, and the hipster ladybird flies with their beards and orange polka-dot shirts. Habitat is at a premium and I did hear that the parent bugs and their families had been pushed out due to the high rent of catkins and forced to move to the silver birch tree next to the railway line.

In my log a plethora of new kitchens have popped up. In the days before gentrification we called them ‘caffs’. The solitary wasps have repurposed, upcycled and retrofitted old beetle holes in readiness of opening their own seasonal pop-up kitchens.

Their menus promote ‘locally-sourced produce’. Juicy organic aphids farmed by ants and plucked from the stem of an award-winning rose bush, or fed exclusively on the sap of a mature sycamore tree; spiders that have been fattened up on freerange hoverflies who have been allowed to roam free amongst the flowers and whose blood has a piquant of ragwort about it; and plump bluebottle flies with their robust meaty flavours of dog poo. Preparation is simple. Aphids and flies will be ‘lightly November 2015

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ESSAY THREE

BRIXTON If anyone had suggested that in the future, a Sushi bar and an art gallery would open on the street, you’d be branded crazier than the end-of-the-world ranters outside tube stations.

Recently

by Alex Wheatle

, a friend and I had lunch at the Ritzy cinema bar in central Brixton. As I placed my order, I remembered that the business where I was standing was the place where staff campaigned and went out on strike for a living wage.

My seat offered me a view of Windrush Square and the Town Hall building across the road. Once I finished my meal, I went down the stairs and through the ground floor dining area where customers were enjoying their Sunday dinners and fine wines. What struck me as my colleague and I made our way to the exit was that among the diners, there wasn’t a single face of colour to be found. Brixton has changed irreversibly.

My mind rewound back to the late 1970s and early 1980s: top ranking sound systems carrying wardrobe-size speaker boxes into Brixton Town Hall on a Friday evening. Later on the same night, just around the corner from the reggae clash, kung fu fans practised their flying kicks outside the Ace cinema following the viewing of a Bruce Lee double bill. On a Saturday morning the many reggae record ‘shacks’ would be selling vinyl straight outta Kingston, Jamaica. If you had the need to score weed, you would make your way past ramshackle terraced housing where the windows were covered by jagged corrugated sheets of metal. You would nod your greetings to the squatters who resided in those crumbling properties on your way to the ‘Front Line’—Railton Road. If anyone suggested that in the future, a Sushi bar and an art gallery would open on the street, you’d be branded crazier than the end-of-theworld ranters who would sometimes appear outside the tube station. For those who were in the unfortunate predicament of trying to sell a terraced property in central Brixton, they hardly received more payment for their home than the trade of a Ford Cortina mark 4.

More than thirty years later, anybody earning less than £30,000 a year might as well forget about applying for a mortgage in central Brixton. Properties in and around Railton Road are on the market for up to £600,000 and rising. The local council, desperate to attract any kind of income in the never-ending onslaught of deep government cuts, are leasing sites to property developers who build apartment blocks that are only affordable to the middle class. Those who were born, schooled and earned their first pay cheque in the area cannot afford a slate over their head in the same post code. Many young people on the council housing list are being offered accommodation as far afield as Milton Keynes and Folkestone—if they accept the offer it’ll prise them away from the support network of family and friends that young people desperately need to build a secure family life. In this pursuit of greed even schools have been bulldozed to make way for gated communities.

Austerity is a word that landlords cannot even spell as they hike up rents whenever they contemplate building a villa in Barbados.To sum up, the working class are being cleansed from central London before our very eyes.

I for one, refuse to blame the affluent new arrivals in Brixton—they see this corner of south west London as an attractive place to live, close to central London with November 2015

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FICTION

DRIVING RANGE A man in Memphis contemplates his own shortcomings while observing his seemingly smugly content neighbours, and their tiny yapping dogs.

The

by Nat Akin

lesbians’ little dogs are at it again. Their big house across my street is lit up at both ends against this evening shade, and I can see Doris and Jean sitting in their respective studies continuing the legal work they each, always, bring home.The law is a second, lost-but-found profession for them. So are each other. Doris is the lifer lesbo, was making all the butchy trouble she could until she found Jean in her fifties, when Jean said she finally saw and admitted the light. Jean left her husband of thirty years, an investment banker, but didn’t by any means leave her three grown kids, the way she tells her own story, if you surrender the time. Doris and Jean met at the Slider Inn, a little burger place in midtown—this great old part of Memphis all different sorts of us peacefully call home—and there, they told me, they found what they’d been missing. They went back to law school together in romantic, flamboyant style. Doris does insurance defence, and Jean does plaintiff’s work. Yet neither sees their toil at opposite ends of the house as being set against each other in these late but chosen careers. And even though they’ve been in actual cases where they faced off before the bench of justice, the two of them see it only as further proof of what was always meant to be.

They’re so happy with each other, with their lifestyle now, the rest of the neighbourhood has to endure almost nightly the noisy proof of their shared joy of finding themselves together. I scoop a handful of neon Top Flites from the basket I’ve brought to my small front yard, space them out in an uneven line. The neon balls are glaring eighties-outof-style, and thus cheaper, and I like them for both reasons. Plus, I can more easily chart their path after I’ve made solid contact than I can with a white ball arcing down above the roof of Doris and Jean’s house. The bright yellow is more visible in front of the dark backdrop of their mature trees in evening, before my shots disappear out of sight, into their backyard and the violent applause of yipping.

The dogs are their corroborating evidence of the certainty of chosen love, legal or not. Each woman delivered the little gift home as a constant, wagging celebration marking the other’s passing the bar. And, if you chance to meet them on the wide sidewalk in the mornings or late afternoons, hand in hand taking their matched pair of Chihuahuas for a walk, they’re giddy to tell you all about it. Doris will rest a thick forearm on Jean’s shoulder in mannish, contractor-style (her profession in her first life), while Jean tells you with laughter and tears the looks on both their faces when each held forth the bowed and basketed little bundles of joy for the other to have and hold and pet for what times they had left together in this world. I mean, it’s not like we were going to start a real family in our late fifties, Doris chimes in when Jean starts to get emotional trying to tell the ultimate truth of the dog-gift. She gives a playful nudge of Jean’s shoulder, winks at you to agree you’re hearing all this as the good, happy news it’s meant to be.

Never mind you have to work hard to pay attention to any of it as those two little tokens of affection strain their leashes right there at your feet on what should feel like shared city property. They make such a high-pitched, desperate racket snapping their toy jaws at you, wheezing from the fury of it, sometimes it’s plain hard to hear November 2015

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FICTION

DIMINISHING RETURNS Strange occurrences in and around George’s home make him wonder whether his late wife is trying to communicate with him from another realm.

It

by Bethan James

all started last winter. After nearly half a century of marriage, Margery passed away following a long illness. Her bronchogenic carcinoma is terminal, the doctor had told George. It was some kind of lung cancer. But he preferred to say she’d passed away from a long illness. That’s what he wrote in her obituary notice for the local paper. They’d both been English teachers, and he felt that those ugly, alien medical terms would dehumanise Margery.

On some days, the hospital staff had given assurances she’d pull through. On others, they’d advised George to start contacting the funeral home and making arrangements.

It was like watching a bulb flicker on and off, bright more often than it was dim. Just as the light began to hold out, the bulb shattered.

George had brought Margery her familiar tray of strong tea and marmalade on toast one morning. She was too weak to carry it herself. His wife was still asleep when he came into the bedroom. George saw her eyes were closed and she was lying down. But no amount of gently speaking to her or nudging her shoulders woke Margery up this time.

Though their cottage was small and they’d never been ones for having many guests around, he was surprised how empty it felt with Margery gone. How much each room echoed, sounding her absence.The days that followed were spent sleeping on the sofa, drinking too much of that brandy she’d left in a drawer, and eating too little food. George felt afraid to go upstairs, as he couldn’t face seeing the empty bed. Then he’d have to accept she was gone.

Eventually, he found the courage to venture up. George knew that Margery would tease him for being so silly. It was only an empty bedroom, after all. His first thought when he walked in was how strange it was to see the bed made so neatly, with floral pillows propped up perfectly against the headboard. George swore he’d left them in a state, after the medical people arrived that day…No, he must’ve kept it tidy after all, in the hope that everything would be all right and she’d be back soon. Perhaps he’d wiped it from his mind in shock. He cursed his memory for not being what it used to be. George was often finding doors open in the house which he thought he’d shut, or forgetting where he’d left the garage keys. He ran his hand down his wife’s side of the bed. It felt cool on his palm.

Life slowly began to return to normal. As normal as it could be, now that Margery had slipped away from him. He felt exposed now, like a cliff-face after a rock fall. Part of him was lost forever. Would he still be able to remember what she looked like by this time next year? Or even next week? But only a part of him had disappeared. Something remained, at least. He was coping. He was.

One afternoon, George heard a familiar thumping against the wall. The children from Number 64 were playing football against the side of his house again. His hand moved to the empty space on the three-seater sofa, where the little one they’d never had would’ve sat. This longing remained a gap, a void, unspoken. As if by not uttering this lack, it somehow wasn’t real. Margery and George were not of the generation who researched baby names and compared top ten lists. They were not the sort of people November 2015

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FICTION

THE EYES A troubled werewolf becomes reconciled with his identity and isolation in a sparsely populated world.

by Rachel Holmes

The Man There was nothing except the commandment ‘There was nothing’. Though nothing grew and grew until it became something. Glistening white skin revealing the body of a naked man, who lay fast asleep.

Time came into being the moment before his eyes opened. The universe was conceived in the instant his vision cleared. It was a mighty crimson sky melting into falling stars that bled life for the living who watched. Showering all around and above knowledge of beauty to those who could know.

He knew nothing. He had appeared on the earth suddenly but felt as if he had always been alive. He was the stars rushing down the cosmos, the trees burning under them, beady eyes that watched in awe and terror, everything his birth had conceived.

Everything he beheld.

The man stood up and went for a walk. Above him the sky was purer then it ever would be again. Its sun shone over the ocean and the sparkles congregated into gleaming silver dolphins turning corkscrews in the air. The feeling was unimaginable, for creatures who had never imagined until now and still gasped at its occurrence.

Still still still but they were alive! And this life filled them unbearably, it expanded into every membrane of their sudden existence and made matter something prehistoric, in a matter of moments.

Before now there had been nothing. Just vague impressions drifting against the hollow of his forming brain. Nothing but the whole unknown earth floating out in space.

Clouds parted like a split yoke. The sky turned round and round, flashing purple, turquoise, violet, gold, thousands of colours he couldn’t describe and barely distinguish.

They were the same as the trees he passed. The ground was as his hand. The moon— a fish’s spine trickling against the surface. The fish was the same as the ripple. He was all of it and it was him, and they merged in intercourse.

Until his acknowledgement, nothing had existed. Without its acknowledgement, he did not exist. He had come from nothing and given it form, nothing had formed him. And like nothing, he did not know he existed. All he knew was what he saw.

Pink faces bathing in hot springs. Leaves fluttering to the ground, between bolts of light that washed along his skin. A millipede slithering was more than he had ever seen before, a prowling wild cat remade the world. He sought out every crevice of creation and it opened inside him like the cosmos expanding. Like his being stretching until no trace remained, or had ever been, of ‘I’.

The man was alone on the earth. He could not speak and knew no language neither of tongue nor of thought, all there was—was the birds that fed him. The wind that clothed him. The grass where he slept. The moon that sung.

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LITRO Q&A Conversation with Naomi Jackson

by Precious Williams In Naomi Jackson’s debut novel The Star Side of Bird Hill, two sisters are abruptly transplanted from Brooklyn, New York to Barbados, to live with their grandmother. The author grew up in and resides in Brooklyn, where she is at work on her second novel.

Q1 How long did it take you to write The Star Side of Bird Hill?

Q2 Your novel is also set partly in your native Brooklyn. How do you feel about the ongoing gentrification happening all over Brooklyn? How has it affected you, your family and your community?

It took me 4 years to write. I spent some of my writing time in Barbados, where my mother is from and where part of the novel is set. That gave me the opportunity to really understand the texture of the place, overhear conversations, listen to the accent.

I live just five blocks from where I was raised. The neighbourhood has seen a lot of really big changes, especially over the past ten years and it both excites and concerns me, depending on the day you ask me. It’s exciting to have a wider range of restaurants and coffee shops but this has long been an immigrant neighbourhood where people could find affordable housing, save up to be able to buy property. As the neighbourhood shifts, prices go up and it will no longer be a gateway for families like mine.

November 2015

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SC H AV O FU AI LA LL LA R S BL HI E PS

Master’s in Philosophy AND ITS USES TODAY PROFESSOR ROGER SCRUTON FBA

October 2015 – September 2016 A one-year, London-based programme of ten evening seminars and individual research led by Professor Roger Scruton, offering examples of contemporary thinking about the perennial questions, and including lectures by internationally acclaimed philosophers.

Seminar-speakers for 2015/16 include: • Roger Scruton • Sebastian Gardner • Simon Blackburn • Raymond Tallis Each seminar takes place in central London and is followed by a dinner during which participants can engage in discussion with the speaker.

The topics to be considered include consciousness, emotion, justice, art, God,

love and the environment. Examination will be by a research dissertation on an approved philosophical topic chosen by the student, of around 20,000 words. Guidance and personal supervision will be provided.

Others who wish to attend the seminars and dinners without undertaking an MA dissertation can join the Programme at a reduced fee as Associate Students.

Course enquiries and applications: Ms Claire Prendergast T: 01280 820204 E: claire.prendergast@buckingham.ac.uk

THE UNIVERSITY OF

BUCKINGHAM

LONDON PROGRAMMES

May 2015 November 2015

Litro Magazine Litro The University of Buckingham is ranked in Magazine the élite top sixteen of the 120 British Universities: 5 49 The Guardian Universities League Table 2012-13

Have you ever had anything published?

If you’ve written a book or had an article published, the Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS) could be holding money owed to you.

ALCS collects secondary royalties earned from a number of sources including the photocopying and scanning of books.

Unlock more information about how you could benefit by visiting www.alcs.co.uk November 2015

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Enter the IGGY and Litro Young Writers’ Prize for a chance to win £1000 and see your story published.

Inspiring, encouraging and acknowledging the creativity of young people is a common goal for the online educational community IGGY and Litro Magazine, who have joined together for the sixth year of the IGGY and Litro Young Writers’ Prize. This competition is open to creative 13-18 year olds all over the world.

The winner will receive a £1,000 cash prize and will see their story be published on IGGY.net and in Litro Magazine.

All eligible entrants will receive free IGGY membership. Go to www.iggy.net/writingprize for more information and to submit your entry.

Competition opens: 2 November 2015 Submission deadline: 8 February 2016 www.IGGY.net www.litro.co.uk

November 2015

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