Review by Miranda Taylor of "Across the Universe: The Magic and Mystery of the Beatles' Creativity" by Steve Taylor

In Across the Universe: The Magic of the Beatles' Creativity, Steve Taylor accepts part of the Beatles' story: four working-class Liverpudlians who represented a nascent democratic collective consciousness - especially at the Beatles' creative zenith. But Taylor also argues that this interpretation flattens the Beatles' creativity as a group into a monolith and, in turn, homogenises their individual forms of creativity. Taylor analyses the band through a more revisionist lens in terms of their creativity and spirituality. The book begins with John and Paul's almost uncanny synchronicity at their first meeting at the St. Peter's Church fete in Woolton; it then follows a broadly chronological account of the band's chemistry, and how that managed to transform the Fab Four into embodiments of the 60s zeitgeist.

Taylor manages to distinguish the Beatles from other cultural staples of the 60s through the assessment of their creativity. Over twelve chapters, Taylor explores the unique circumstances that led to their creative success. He highlights the importance of Carl Jung's synchronicity, and, by following the Beatles chronologically, he is able to turn their narrative into a study of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

Through this, he persuasively frames their creative and spiritual development as simultaneously a movement toward self-actualisation and a rise to creative prominence. He describes the Beatles reaching the fifth, and highest level, of self-actualisation, a group dynamic that feels a need to evolve or progress; a group that fundamentally wants to grow intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. Self-actualisers have intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation; their motivation is fulfilled entirely from the self, rather than prestige or popularity. The Beatles' commercial success was, in this reading, a by-product, rather than the ultimate goal. Taylor insists that self-actualisation is the essential difference between the Beatles and most of their contemporaries. One example he highlights is Gerry and the Pacemakers: in 1964, they were about on the same level as the Beatles, yet by 1967 they had remained static, whilst the zeitgeist had shifted dramatically. The Beatles were able to match the zeitgeist, intuitively and with deft precision.

Personally, I thought that Taylor's emphasis on George Harrison stands out as the clearest of his arguments. Much previous research sidelines Harrison despite him being the member most devoted to the work of spirituality. Harrison continued to stick to a life of spirituality even after the Beatles’ split, and their subsequent, as Taylor puts it, "descent ... like a river split into tributaries then [stopping] and not flowing." Taylor resists the "quiet Beatle" caricature and frames him as integral to the band's creative development, highlighting how during the later Beatles period, Harrison seemed to lose interest in the guitar as his primary instrument. During this era, Taylor notes how Harrison moved towards sitars and organs, evident on "Blue Jay Way" and "It's All Too Much." Without the guitar as his primary mode of expression, Harrison's creativity was audible in the group's projects. Taylor cleverly uses this to show that Harrison's creativity is not a side story to the Lennon-McCartney narrative. Rather, it exists as one that proves to be a distinct route to the group's apex of self-actualisation.

Across the Universe serves less as a conventional biography of the Beatles than a psychological and spiritual revisionist study of the Beatles' creativity. Taylor makes the band's ostensible "magic" and "mystery" less monolithic yet simultaneously more human through his chronological retelling of the band's story. He is able to give familiar material a new angle, even if at points he risks making coincidence do a bit too much explanatory work, only lightly implying the existence of something otherworldly. But for Beatles fans interested in the subject, the book acts as an incredibly thoughtful contribution to a comprehensive study of the Beatles' creativity, offering even the most knowledgeable fans a new orientation of a familiar story. The Beatles' "magic" emerges as the convergence of distinct, synchronised, and sustained group creativity.

 

About the reviewer
Miranda Taylor is studying English Literature and History at University. She loves the music of the Beatles, the Monkees and My Chemical Romance. 

You can read more about Across the Universe by Steve Taylor on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "The Lady of Atlantis" by Constantine

 

Atlantis is one of those stories so deeply embedded in the imagination that it can be difficult to approach it without the weight of everything that has come before. We think of a lost civilisation, catastrophe, mystery and the irresistible possibility that somewhere beneath the myth there may have been a real place. In The Lady of Atlantis, Constantine takes that familiar legend and brings it back to human scale. 

The novel is inspired by the archaeology of Akrotiri and by what the author describes as his own interpretations of Minoan writings, but its real strength lies in the attempt to imagine what such a world might have felt like from within. Thira is not presented merely as a doomed civilisation waiting to become archaeology. It is a living society, with its own beliefs, customs, relationships, expectations and hierarchies, inhabited by people who naturally assume that their world will continue. 

At its centre is Sa-ra, a young priestess who has always heard voices. Within her culture this gives her a particular spiritual authority, yet the novel is interested in more than the mechanics of prophecy. Sa-ra’s gift is connected to intuition, judgement and an ability to perceive what other people sometimes cannot articulate for themselves. This gives the spiritual dimension of the book an appealing ambiguity. The author does not simply reduce ancient belief to superstition viewed through modern eyes, nor does he demand that everything be understood in straightforwardly supernatural terms. Instead, belief is allowed to exist as part of the fabric of Sa-ra’s world. That, for me, is one of the more interesting aspects of the novel. The prose has a deliberately simple, formal quality which suits Sa-ra’s world and helps maintain a sense of historical distance. There are moments when that register may require a little adjustment, particularly for younger readers, but it also prevents the setting from feeling overly modern. Importantly, it is balanced by humour, warmth and moments of very recognisable human behaviour. 

Historical fiction about the ancient world can sometimes make its characters feel suspiciously contemporary. Here, there is a genuine attempt to imagine a society operating according to different assumptions. The place of women, religious practice, ideas about marriage and social responsibility are not treated simply as curiosities but as ordinary elements of Sa-ra’s experience. At the same time, the emotional concerns remain immediately recognisable. People love, doubt, worry, desire approval and try to understand what their futures might contain. In one early episode, a woman seeks Sa-ra’s guidance over which man she should marry. What matters about the scene is not the prediction itself, but Sa-ra’s understanding that prophecy cannot remove the uncertainty inherent in human relationships. Marriage, she recognises, will always contain both unforeseen hardship and unexpected happiness. It is characteristic of the book’s wider approach: grand ideas are repeatedly brought back to individual lives. 

Of course, that becomes especially significant because the reader knows something the characters do not. The world of Thira is unstable. The mountain is stirring and catastrophe is approaching. Yet life continues around it. People make plans, form relationships and imagine futures. It is this contrast between the enormous scale of what is coming and the ordinary lives being lived beneath it that gives the story much of its poignancy. There is something particularly affecting about treating Atlantis not primarily as a mystery to be solved, but as a home that people believed was permanent.

The novel also raises interesting questions about the relationship between myth and history. Atlantis has accumulated centuries of speculation, reinvention and fantasy. By rooting his version in Thira and Akrotiri, the author imagines the legend as a possible echo of real experience: a prosperous society, a natural catastrophe and memories transformed in their transmission. We tend to encounter ancient civilisations after their stories have ended. We know which cities disappeared, which cultures changed and which disasters came. The people themselves possessed none of that hindsight. They experienced their lives forwards, surrounded by all the uncertainty, hope and expectation with which we experience our own. The Lady of Atlantis understands that distinction. Its most affecting idea is therefore also its simplest: before Atlantis became legend, it was somebody’s present. And Sa-ra’s world matters not because we know it will be lost, but because to her – and to everyone around her – it is still entirely alive.

About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, researcher and lecturer. His interests include dystopian literature, queer studies, YA fiction and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a wide range of print and electronic media, and fiction titles he recently worked on as commissioning editor have won regional readers’ and publishers’ awards. His debut novel, Sisters of the Pentacle, was published by Hermitage Press in 2022, and his first non-fiction title, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity, was published by The History Press (June 2026).

You can read more about The Lady of Atlantis by Constantine on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Pam Thompson of "Skinship" by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

 

Skinship is Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s second collection after Sing me down from the dark (Salt, 2022) and is both a development and continuation from the previous collection. Corrin-Tachibana lived in Japan for ten years, experienced two marriages and the challenges of coming to terms with cultural expectations, not least judgements by in-laws, and indeed her own mother.

Skinship (its meaning in Japanese, "skin-to-skin contact") sees the narrator returning to Japan after a fifteen-year absence. Candid personal narratives are delivered via a variety of forms, predominantly variations on the zuihitsu and haibun. 

A zuihitsu draws together loosely-connected fragments of different types of writing. It allows narrator and reader to travel through time and place and to grasp several understandings about an overarching subject. Take the opening poem, "Skinship: a zuihitsu," which flickers through various memories around the birth of the narrator’s son, "Our son was born in Kalamazoo Hospital," and signals aggressions she meets along the way: the nurse who seized her nipple and "shoved it" in the newborn’s mouth; the mother-in-law who insists she eats an omelette which makes her sick, the increasingly ominous significance of a song, "I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo! Recorded in 1942 by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra." 

The Forward-prize shortlisted" ‘Madame Gout: a zuihitsu" draws its title from the writings of Benjamin Franklin in his dialogue with the Gout:

                                                                       Madame Gout. You know my 
          sedentary state and on that account, it would seem, Madame Gout,
          as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my fault.

The rest of the poem is diverting and entertaining, beginning with accounts of the rich food the poet has eaten leading to the "foot twitch" on the train journey when she is talking to the "tattooed Norwegian." As we learn about famous gout sufferers, for instance, and the word’s derivation, "from the Latin gutta, a drop of liquid," we also sense the poet’s frustration at her husband’s repeated statement that "gout is common in Japan." The final couplet stings and conveys much about the relationship: "Your husband asks how is your foot? For the umpteenth time. / He is happy you are in the house when he returns from golf."

A haibun combines a section or sections of prose with one or more haiku. Traditionally the prose sets a scene, perhaps describes a journey while the haiku provides an oblique commentary or reflection on the prose. There are harsh times certainly but "Haibun from East Lothian," with its precise details of landscape, of plants and birds and joy with a lover, temporarily blots out other concerns even as the haiku hints at warning:

                                                                The spiky cockle I carry back
          from the bay, held sideways, is a pair of birds nestling their
          heads. Upside down it is erotic. And for a few days, in a
          whitewashed cottage, I do not think of your spoilt daughter
          … my teenage son … or of the stranger husband, in the spare room.

above marram grass

quartering short-eared owls

pursued by corvids

A "burning haibun" usually has a darker intent. In at least three sections, an act of erasure is performed on the initial prose which is then reduced to a haiku. "Fishbones: A Burning Haibun" gives insight into the narrator’s fraught relationship with her mother. She was "Rarely praised" and "there were plenty of stories about the trauma of having me." The poet "yearned, even as an adult, to hold her attention." The prose section ends with "She hates me cooking Dad fish. Throws open the lounge windows. Has no patience. For fishbones." The haiku which emerges from the erasure encapsulates chillingly what the broader narrative has conveyed:

I diluted her –
she spat words,
fishbones

The inclusion of the Japanese language, its phrases and characters, adds an extra visual and aural dimension. The different layouts of the poems are a visual treat too as is their attention to the nuances of social behaviour. I admired the shifts in tone, the balancing of heartbreak with resilience and sardonic humour and the narrator’s no-holds-barred approach to her material. There are so many more threads and features to be explored (e.g. music, literature, art – for instance the sharply poignant poems written in response to Yoko Ono’s Music of the Mind exhibition at Tate Modern) in this rich and inventive collection.

 

About the reviewer
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester. Her latest pamphlet is Sub/urban Legends (2025, Paper Swans Press). She is a Hawthornden Fellow.

You can read more about Skinship by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Emma Lee of "Not Even October" by Tim Relf

Not Even October is a collection that looks back on the ordinary moments that shape lives, while hoping that life still has more to offer. In "Time is running out" a "welcome home" banner feels celebratory until the poet learns it’s "for someone you later heard was coming home for the last time" which gives it an extra poignancy.

There are poems that push at what poets are "supposed" to write or not write about, e.g. in "Roadkill," where "poets must not linger by dead objects in the road" and those who claim there are rules are 

          the people who claim prose poems don’t exist then spend hours picking
          at the bones of line breaks. You’ll find them staring off –
          heroically and tragically – in their author photos as if they’re trying
          to see beyond joy and love, beyond moons, shards, flowers, geese,
          lambs, crows, cow parsley, beyond the whole damn kit and caboodle
          of clichés.

The frustrations of bureaucracy and "computer-says-no" scenarios feature too. "Proof of life" drips with the exasperation of those captcha tests. 

The title poem is about lighting the first fire of the year as the chill of autumn begins, memories of "sleepovers, beaches, bike rides," and ending "I’ll sit and watch / today go up in smoke." "May" deals with the superstition of bringing hawthorn into the house, as the poet breathes "in a shower of speckled blossom. So much for that stench: / it’s a myth. If this is how death smells, well, perhaps / there’s nothing to be afraid of, after all."

There’s a wry humour and Relf relishes poking fun that those who impose restrictions while championing those who rebel, demonstrating how humans connect and evolve. Not Even October probes the everyday, asking readers to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and look again at what seems familiar in these lively poems.

About the reviewer
Emma Lee’s publications include a novel Stalling an Ambush (Pegasus 2026) and poetry collection The Significance of a Dress (Arachne, 2020). She co-edited Welcome to Leicester (Dahlia Books, 2016) and Over Land, Over Sea (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for magazines and blogs here. She is Treasurer for Leicester Writers’ Club.

You can read more about Not Even October by Tim Relf on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Lee Wright of "On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing"

Blake Morrison’s early ambitions did not include becoming a life writer. Then his father died, prompting him to explore parts of his relationship with him that he had never considered before. Death was the trigger for memoir. "For others it might be a disturbed childhood, or addiction or mental breakdown, or the threat to the environment, or displacement to a new country, or the chaos of the political world," Blake says. 

In my case, a film was the "trigger" and the realisation back in 2020 that I had things to say about how this film had set me on the path to becoming a writer. As far back as I can remember, I have felt a compulsion to create. As a boy, I’d invent stories in my mind, not to share with anyone, but just to entertain myself. The stories played out like films, since they all grew out of cinema I had watched. Something shifted in me when I watched a film – like a wave dragging me under, and with it, a desire to see a new world below the surface. Even now, films can still spark that urge, though in adulthood the catalyst sits more with literature than cinema. My PhD, which became a memoir, was set in motion by a particular film.  

Let me explain. 

I remained stuck, essentially, in illiteracy until the age of fourteen, at which point I first encountered John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980). I avoided reading at school, where children like me were mostly overlooked. I acted like I understood, although I never attempted to decode the words. I was ignorant and lazy. At the time, I probably felt more indifference than shame about it. There was no belief that reading could unlock anything, not the way films seemed to. It also felt like a waste of time, a door I didn’t need to open. Reading had no place in the life I was expected to live. The Fog, however, left me with questions I wanted answered. It felt layered enough to make me keep coming back to it. Some of the scenes in it changed how I saw my future. 

That, I thought, was enough of a reason to embark on a memoir. The difficulty was that it proved harder to write than I had initially imagined. Yes, I did my research, devoting the next six years to reading memoir after memoir and British Film Institute book after BFI book, trying to discover the secret ingredient that would make the combination pleasing to the reader. Yet every draft I produced left me with a bitter aftertaste. Most of the self-help books about writing nonfiction failed to help. I see now that I was looking for something like an A-to-Z: much like the road map of Great Britain my father kept tucked inside the seat pocket of his car. His advice was simply: "Never set off without a map."  

It was only a matter of time before Blake Morrison came to my rescue, just as he did in 2016, when he delivered a public lecture at the University of Leicester. I had never been in a lecture theatre before, and that experience prompted me to apply for the MA in Creative Writing. That course eventually led to my first published pieces and, later, to a PhD. 

Few writers can move so effortlessly between forms and make each book into a captivating narrative, but Morrison is one of them. I repeatedly come back to this moment in the story, the moment that shaped my growth as a writer. Three of Morrison’s works – Too True (1998), a collection of essays; The Last Weekend (2010), a novel; and Two Sisters (2023), a memoir – have made him one of the most important writers in my life. His latest book, On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing has further shaped my thinking. For me, it may well be the most significant of all his works. It’s not a rule-book or a teaching textbook, but a set of ideas, examples and suggestions assembled as an A-Z. The book’s categories run from "Addiction" all the way to "Zzz," prompting Morrison’s dry observation: "Unless it’s a guidebook for insomniacs, no writer wants to send people to sleep." 

Morrison discusses the mechanics of the form in a way that will reach every reader. As I devote myself to writing creative nonfiction, I have been guided – much like Morrison – by the work of other writers. "Writers find their way through other writers. They’re looking to be themselves but can’t get there on their own," says Morrison. By examining writers ranging from Samuel Pepys to Tim Lott, Maggie Nelson and Jenn Ashworth, the book reflects on the challenges of creative nonfiction and explores why the genre matters. 

Introduce this book in a Creative Writing class and it is likely to go off like a hand grenade, particularly through its discussions of plagiarism, offence, sex, and vengeance. Morrison has never been afraid to broach difficult subjects, as readers of his book on the James Bulgar murder case will know. Then again, as Morrison says, "Upsetting people is part of the business." Morrison has taught me not to fear the lethal shrapnel, and On Memoir can be our body armour. 

About the reviewer
Dr Lee Wright holds a PhD from the University of Leicester in Creative Non-Fiction and has had numerous pieces of short fiction and non-fiction published. 

Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "Neon Steel" by Jennifer Maritza McCauley

I will start at the beginning with the "Episodes" as McCauley calls them - and what’s not to love, they entice you into the book and once there, you cannot escape. They are: 

Online

The Girl in the Bomba Dress

Afro Otaku

For August Wilson and Romare Bearden

The Text Message

OAV: Neon Steel

Viper/Sweet

Smoke Break

Romeo Must Die (Again)

Batman in Pittsburgh

The Con

Commercial Break: Writing Fiction

OAV: The Vampires of Pittsburgh

Commercial Break: The Day the Salt Ran Out in the City

Respect the Chair

Epilogue: Eat N’ Park

Neon Steel is an energetic, genre-melding collection that feels at once like a teenager's mixtape, a manga, and a missive to Pittsburgh. Jennifer Maritza McCauley blends magical realism, pop culture, and sharp storytelling in a book that vibrates with life.

All the "Episodes" are linked, despite their odd names. Neon Steel is a glorious celebration of the often-overlooked Black "nerd culture," Afro-Latina identity, and the process of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1990s and early 2000s. It follows anime fans, vampires, indie rappers, robots, and pleasure-mongers as they move through their neighbourhoods, their friendships, and the bewitching otherworld reverberating beneath real-world stuff.

What makes Neon Steel remarkable is each Episode's fluidity. We are introduced to a secret coven of vampires hiding out in steel mills; we see an explosion into fireballs when a character’s rage becomes supernatural. These shifts cleverly show how fandom, imagination, and cultural hybridity shape our identity. McCauley moves fluently between realism and fantasy, often within one paragraph, creating stories that are dynamic and always unpredictable.

Neon Steel is bold and inventive, and it evokes a genuine, deeply felt response in the reader. It doesn’t fit with any one genre. The book uses magical realism and pop-culture tropes to chart the coming-of-age journey involving its central protagonist, Adrienne, alongside a cast of outsiders seeking identity and connection.

We discover the underground world of Afro Otaku, and we see a reinterpretation of The Terminator as a manga narrative featuring a purple-haired robot. The characters determine the core of the book: young people negotiating in-betweenness, racial, cultural, social, or personal. McCauley’s central figures are lifelike, intense and often flawed; they are real people searching for something. Themselves? Another world? Otherness? Pittsburgh is always there as a backdrop, yet also as a character: uncompromising, neon-lit, of course, and full of secret places and other worlds.

What makes the collection uniquely compelling is its clear structural framing. McCauley models the narrative after a season of classic Japanese anime, organizing the linked stories like television episodes complete with commercial breaks, interstitial sketches, and standalone OVA-style interludes.

At its core, Neon Steel analyses the intersection of Black, Afro-Latina and Asian pop-culture influences, delving deeply into the subcultures of youth who find community in spaces where they are historically underrepresented: anime fandoms, manga, cosplay, comic books, and arcades. Underneath the vibrant pop-culture parodies and speculative elements lies a tender portrait of youth, alienation, and the emotional safety found in chosen families. It’s a celebration of fandom, identity, and the communities we build when the world doesn’t quite know what to do with us. For readers who love hybrid fiction, magical realism, or stories that centre Black and Afro Latina nerd culture, this is an exceptional work from one of today's most exciting writers. McCauley has captured the nostalgia of night-time anime blocks and dial-up internet with a distinct, unapologetic voice. Ultimately, Neon Steel acts as an energetic, intensely personal, and stylish celebration of individual discovery for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

About the reviewer
Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more about Neon Steel by Jennifer Maritza McCauley on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by San Lin Tun of "On the Bodies of Strangers" by Hannah Stevens

Having a tattoo on the body has a reason behind it, and it also seems that a tattoo has a story to tell. To use the theme of tattoos for a collection of short stories is significant, original and a daring attempt to bring meaning to life. One can see a tattoo as it is or one can assume that it is for bodily decoration, but in reality tattoos speak for themselves.

On the Bodies of Strangers by Hannah Stevens includes twelve stories and the author captures distinct and indistinct tattoos on human body and links them with human experiences and lives. People might get tattoos out of necessity or out of fancifulness, but indeed, they have interesting stories to disclose.

The author’s tone is not expansive, but short and precise, taking readers to the exact critical moment in characters' lives, one where they will be surprised with the twist she has used in her writing techniques. That is a skill only a few writers possess. Her characters range from adolescents, to adult men, women, jailors, etc. All of them have their own tattoos to characterise them. Some represent pure sensation, some are for curing trauma, some represent hope and a better future.

Reading these stories will leave behind thoughts, surprises or smiles on the face of readers. One can confidently say that Stevens executes the stories very well. She does not take much time to develop characters but readers can sympathize or understand the emotions, feelings, and sensations of the characters in a very short space and time. 

Among the stories, my two favourites are "The End of August" and "Naming of Bones" because they ended up with unexpected twists and many things to ponder upon afterwards. All of the others are very readable and enjoyable, too. After reading Stevens's stories, I am silently looking out for a person with a tattoo in real life, and trying to decipher the meaning of it, because of the magic spell of her writing is still prevalent in my mind.     

About the reviewer
San Lin Tun is a writer and acoustic guitarist living in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma). He is a Gold Olympiad Winner at the Guitar Olympiad 2025 and a recipient of Yorgos Foudoulis Culture Award 2025/2026 and has published over a dozen books and two music albums. 

You can read more about On the Bodies of Strangers by Hannah Stevens on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Sally Shaw of "The Longest Day" by Lisa Williams

The Longest Day is Lisa Williams's debut novella, each page holding exactly one hundred words. The one-hundred word stories are set in a tower block in Leicester: "Longhope House rises into an ecru sky with the railway station tucked at her feet. She looks tired, her concrete curves haven’t been tattooed with a fancy new mural." These words convey the status of the flats and the people that reside in each. The novella is set on 21st June 2019, the longest day of the year, and allows the residents of the tower block to speak.

The way Williams has formatted the book, each page having flat number, title and time reminded me of 253 by Geoff Ryman. As I read, I was curious to find out the relevance of the flat numbers, because Williams hasn’t set the stories in flat order: flat 204, for instance, is followed by flat 602. For me as I read, it was as though I was running up and down the stairs to each of the flats, to find their stories. I tried to hold each story in my mind's eye, searching for connections to individual residents, some of which I found, others I may have missed so fleeting were they. I liked the layout of each page: the words, page centre, enabled me to access each sentence and absorb their full impact. 

The stories within each flat are like flash cards that may show who the resident is, why they are there, their past, their sadness, age, family, work, personality, circumstance and more. Williams packs enormous detail into each sentence: "Renee is planning her funeral. She’s reading through the hymn-list again. She’s told no one about this but has detailed it all in a red notepad bought for 3/6 in Woolies. It still has the price sticker on it." In these three sentences I gain an insight into Renee’s age, that she’s a private person and holds a fear of death and her wishes not being known. As the story of each flat unfolds I find moments of humanity, conveyed by words that portray the underbelly of circumstance and uncover the predators waiting to pounce. Flat 505 "the mobile hairdresser" has a gentle beginning, and tells the story of Betty, her hair downy thin. The hairdresser sees the beauty of Betty, and doesn’t draw attention to "a peaches fuzz over a shrimp pink scalp." Betty is taken back to beehives, gossip and herself, in a story of untold truth and unfelt age. 

These stories can be read as isolated vignettes to reflect on, and yet as I mentioned earlier I searched for threads that pull them together. Flat 903 and 205 are threaded to flat 1305, the actions of whom cause harm and disappointment, demonstrating the ramifications of circumstance. Taken as a whole the stories form a collage of the lives of the people who dwell within the tower block. 

The Longest Day is a complex read, and there’s beauty to be found amongst the harshness and sometimes foul aspects of life for the inhabitants of Longhope House. I wrote down my thoughts after reading the last page. I discovered glimpses of community but in the main this had been stripped away, the post left in pigeon holes, the milk not delivered to flat doors, the demise of the caretaker. It made me consider how and why people are housed in run-down tower blocks. Are they selected because they are vulnerable, have no fight, no right to ask for better? Williams has provided an insight into the lives of those hidden away and maybe The Longest Day will bring these issues into the day light. 

The Longest Day is a book that can be read as a whole, or read story by story to be thought about, enabling you to see the individual people living in those tower blocks you pass rushing for the train.

About the reviewer
Sally has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including the Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. Sally lives in the countryside. 

You can read more about The Longest Day by Lisa Williams on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Mariella Bucci of Edinburgh International Book Festival, Livestream 2026

In the third week of August, I had a fantastic and educational week attending a series of livestream talks by the Edinburgh International Book Festival. This accessible alternative to travelling to the city was reasonably priced with a Pay What You Want model, and straightforward navigation from email links to the website livestreams. Some highlights this year included The Front List with John Grisham, Lady Brenda Hale, and Maggie O’Farrell on her new novel, Land.

As a feminist fantasy lover, two talks stood out as the most engaging and interesting. Saara El-Arifi and Nikita Gill discussed their approach in their respective novels on the mythological figures of Cleopatra and Hekate from the hilarious and simple place of "rage." For El-Arifi as a Black British author, being able to reclaim Cleopatra’s narrative was important, and was met with the constant question – "but who is her great love, Mark Antony or Julius Caesar?" Without spoiling, El-Arifi’s justified response was found in another place entirely. Gill, meanwhile, illustrated how the moving story of Hekate crossing Hades to rescue her child bore striking resemblance to contemporary refugee crises, which gave her a powerful personal entry point into Hekate’s character. 

Samantha Shannon was a warm and encouraging voice to all aspiring authors, providing a wealth of advice from her long fantasy career. I really enjoyed her insight into the sticky moniker of a "strong female character" – after publishing The Bone Season, she was often asked why she’d chosen to write a "weak" female character, which Shannon pushed back on. She reflected how at the time, the two most popular female characters were Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, with the former branded "weak" but the latter "strong." Shannon theorised this is because the more emotional Bella is traditionally feminine, while Katniss embodies masculine traits, and argued that female emotion carries its own kind of strength that deserves just as much respect.

A final, funny thread that wove between both talks was how all three authors, to quote verbatim, "had beef with" different male historians from their research. For El-Arifi, it was the hypersexual, seductive version of Cleopatra written by Plutarch in Parallel Lives; for Gill, the poet Hesiod who vilified every goddess except Hekate because she stood by Zeus; and for Shannon, the Elizabethan writer Richard Johnson and his racialised, misogynistic portrayal of the princess in the tale of George and the Dragon, from which The Priory of the Orange Tree was inspired. All these anecdotes served as a reminder of two things for any aspiring writer: the importance of research, but also the ability to read between the wider context and find a fresh perspective on historical interpretations.

Overall, I had a great time at all the talks I attended, with these two as the standout highlights. I would recommend anyone who has the opportunity to go to the Edinburgh International Book Festival in person to do so, as I did myself a few years ago, especially when the festival is on at the same time as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Between the sublime shadow of Edinburgh Castle and the sparkling interiors of Holyroodhouse, independent theatre bursting from every alleyway and authors philosophising in halls and libraries, Edinburgh in August is a vibrant cultural mosaic every creative should experience at least once in their lifetime.

About the reviewer
Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Zbigniew Mirosławski of "Równolegości / Parallelism" by Anna Maria Mickiewicz

The release of the 40th anniversary of edition of this literary work is an important event. It is entitled Równolegości / Parallelism. The author runs the Literary Waves Publishing House. She is a member of the English and Polish Pen Club. She has been awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Her poems have received awards in competitions in Great Britain and Italy. 

The introduction to the latest work is written by Amelia Serraller Calyo from Spain. It begins with the poem "they were not the ones." The unspecified "they ... ordered the trees to be silent" and "gagged the birds." This is a reminiscence from 1985. The next piece "my mother" is about hard work, serving to help others. The poem entitled "secret of the manuscript" written in Oxford is a reflection on the atmosphere at the ancient university: among flowers, fountains, courtyards. All this opens up "spaces deafened." "An Angel in London" tells about a meeting with a young seller of carrots and tomatoes. With a pale complexion, with "wings a bit chipped," he seems to be out of place. 

Human fates unfold differently. This angel still faces the challenge ahead of him: of discovering himself while abroad. Walking around London, we wander with Mickiewicz to Regent's Park. We come across the moment of a proposal. He is among the invisible clouds, she is "tangled by a rose muslin." Their time together will be measured by a clock on a Victorian tower. We will notice a jaybird "full of fear." 

The poet travels around the world, visits California, the Cornish moors, the blue-drenched hills of the Greek sea, and reads carefully Joseph Conrad’s English writings. We learn about the encoded emotions of a mother who lost her son; she writes about it sparingly, with great distance but also with pain that cannot be hidden. It is embedded in the description of simple actions. What did he do, what did he not do; he "did not even drink water / but fed the cat / said goodbye to his mother / he adjusted his suit." Is shrapnel of the day in Aleksandra Palace like grenade shrapnel? Is it the arrival of a spring or of a war? The streets rumble, the puddles light up. They sparkle. A blooming bouquet, a green tree are enough to create a spring poem. At Forty Hall manor "the platonic soul opens spaces," an ocean breeze appears, and "time strokes the air tenderly / the sluggish sun treads on the waves of the stream." 

The texts written abroad and those from home (memories or longings) create parallels. Now we know the reason for the book's title. The poem "Lublin counterpoints" recalls an old craftsman, Jan, who painted church arcades, and Stanisław, a carpenter. Their works have outlived their masters. Their silhouettes are remembered only by "the old ladies who peek out from behind the curtains." The action jumps to Manchester. Here we meet Chopin. We empathize with his mood. It is obvious that, suffering from lung disease, "he did not like the smog / … damp English weather," and crowded streets. Listening to the concert of the "Raindrop Prelude," we understand the loneliness of the genius, we admire the drops of music, like rain dripping "from his thin fingers, rapidly." In France, we get to know "walls of Aigues-Mortes." Ocne the only 13th century French port, it has now its moments of glory behind it. "An overgrown beach / a trodden grass / not knowing the scratching mowers' are a memento of departing into the void, like the crusades, the sixth and seventh, which set off from here. 

The juxtaposition of Socrates and Jaspers implies a comparison of faith in miraculous events and the self. The former will return to us in poems – "Socrates' cold gardeners" and "About the mystery of time." Everything is short-lived. Drinking coffee quickly on the Berkeley hills, we can only pretend that "we are still sipping something aromatic." Truly, drinking it during a meeting that is at the same time a short farewell, we do not have a moment to lose. 

An experience that is incomprehensible to "those who did pass across" but also to those "who did not pass across" is the state of war, whether it is a coup d'état or spruces in the Estonian forest broken like matches. They can be compared to broken souls. Echoes of such experiences slowly fade away, and we "put on earmuffs / silencing wars," opening the borders of independence. This is a reminiscence from London in 2024, 44 years after 1981, after General Jaruzelski's coup. 

Several texts are dedicated to personal experiences, for example the poem "birthday sun," another entitled "Was it worth it?" as well as "My Victorian house," and "I will return to you." In sum, this is another interesting volume, giving an idea of the scope of the poet’s work. 

The section "With a Reviewer's Pen" complements the poems very well. Here, we find the statements of Prof. Urszula Chowaniec, who emphasizes the compression of the poetic stanzas. Katarzyna Kado, herself a poet publishing, among others, in the Lublin’s Akant, draws attention to the alienation visible in the texts of Anna Maria Mickiewicz. Krzysztof Muszkowski, a veteran of the 17th Lviv Regiment and the 300th Mazovian Land Squadron, but also the secretary of Mieczysław Grydzewski, writes about the poet's emotions enclosed in "poetic landscapes." Dr Teresa Podemska-Abt from the antipodes writes about taming the world, with references to Polish and European culture. Dr Tomasz Niedokos, literary scholar, lecturer, researching the history of England, British media, and historical inspirations for cultural texts, draws attention to adaptation in the new country, drawing from the experiences of two cultures. Ted Smith-Orr notices Mickiewicz's "London Manuscript" and writes about "an emigrant poet ... who looks at her new surroundings" and describes her observations as "enlightening and bold." Krystyna Konecka reviews the volume Between Lublin and London. Selected Poems, writing about memory, longing, their magical influence on poetry, the economy of language, refined metre, and lightness of impression. Prof. Jerzy F. Fert develops the theme of symbolism contained in a minimum of words. Tom Wachtel from London appreciates conciseness, conveying the specifics and atmosphere of places. Adam Siemieńczyk appreciates the conversation "with the crying Socrates," its ancient and contemporary references. David Clark captures this poetry by calling it the "snapshots of fleeting moments," and comments on the meticulousness and "world of the inner self" of the poet. 

In this distinguished choir of reviewers, I was delighted to find some space for a few sentences of my own. I am enchanted by the apparent distance, responsibility for every word, consummate mastery, faithfulness of descriptions and identification with Englishness. On re-reading the poems in the collection Parallelisms, I recommend them to all lovers of lyrical speech and experts in Polish-British relations.  

About the reviewer

Zbigniew Mirosławski, born in Wadowice in 1958, is a poet, historian, editor. He graduated from Jagiellonian University. He is the author of 21 volumes of poetry and the prose works Day by Day and Family Stories. His poems have been translated into 13 languages and published internationally in literary magazines and anthologies, including International Writer’s Journal (USA), The Polish Review (UK), Polonika (Austria), and World Poets (Serbia). He has received numerous literary awards, including the Honorary Certificate of the Guido Gozzani Competition in Turin (2023), and distinctions from literary journals in Greece and China. He is the editor of the literary magazine Aspiracje (Aspirations). His cultural distinctions include the Meritorious Cultural Activist Badge, the Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service to Polish Culture, the Medal of the National Education Commission (2025), the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw Medal, and the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Review by Jessica Mookherjee of "Darling Blue" by Sarah James

Darling Blue is a poetry collection that creates its own world. We follow a woman through galleries and paintings, gradually discovering who she is and what she is doing in this world of art galleries, secret trysts and obsession with a man whom she names Blue. Paintings become ways of understanding what she cannot understand directly. We begin, as she does, to search for Blue everywhere.

Halfway through the first section of Sarah James’s Darling Blue, I realised I had been reading it wrongly. I had been judging the poems one by one: some I admired, others seemed more conventional, accomplished ekphrastic poems. But suddenly I found myself wanting urgently to know what happened next. I was reading a poetry collection as if it were a novel. And that was when I understood: the collection is the poem.

James is particularly good at allowing later poems to alter the experience of her earlier ones. The book is a palimpsest: meanings are written over but never completely erased. Walter Crane’s Neptune’s Horses recurs throughout. Initially its untameable horse offers an exhilarating image of freedom. Later, after the narrator admits that she failed to escape Blue’s grip, the same image cannot mean quite the same thing. By the time she becomes "More Than Neptune’s Horse," we’ve travelled too far with her to accept untameability quite at face value. In that way, the collection itself becomes an artwork.

The narrator repeatedly understands herself, only to understand herself differently several poems later. She leaves her younger self behind, then acknowledges: "I am no longer her, / and yet, part of her is still me."

Looking is one of the collection’s central actions. James’s narrator doesn’t passively describe paintings; she interferes with them. She wonders what their women are really thinking and questions the stories art history has given them. In If they looked more closely, Waterhouse’s Juliet is no longer necessarily dreaming of Romeo. Her blue necklace can be "clutched / and fingered," but beneath it is the woman’s own "unquenchable" redness. Gradually a colour grammar develops. Blue is the lover, but also something unknowable; red belongs increasingly to the narrator, full of body and appetite.

As we read the book, it begins to teach us how to read it. It’s an elegant lesson in what a whole collection can do, rather than simply being a series of competent or excellent poems. Darling Blue gives us ekphrasis, yes, but as an act of creating a woman’s inner life: we want the paintings to decode her. Then there are prose-poem heartbreaks when reality crashes in, and the epistolary poems addressed to Blue. These three registers - ekphrasis, prose poem and epistolary - become part of the narrator’s own construction. 

I came to trust the narrator’s contradictions. She stops writing to Blue, then writes another letter. They feel less like unreliability than the ordinary instability of the stories we make about our lives.

Another theme is power. The power relations are complicated. Blue has the wife, home and public life, while the narrator receives fragments: hotel rooms, disappearing messages, postcards from paintings they have seen together. In one of the saddest passages, she arranges those postcards in her flat: "A collage of our time / together, without us in it."

Yet she is not simply Blue’s victim. She looks at him, anatomises him, makes him into material. "In my head now, at least, I make him my muse instead," she says in the poem "Questions."

There are revelations about who she is which make the construction of the collection suddenly feel inevitable. I don’t want to give too much away, but her relationship with art is more than that of an interested observer. Meaning accumulates in the spaces between artworks. The collection is also an exhibition, and we walk through it with her.

The later poems deepen the book considerably. Blue begins to disappear. Blank space appears, and so do a son and another man. In "A father," love consists of wiping noses, holding sick bowls, scrubbing vomit and helping with homework: not romantic spectacle but attention and repetition. In "Unstoppable," the narrator turns from paintings "behind glass / and framed with dead wood" towards her living son, whose eyes contain "whole worlds / which haven’t yet been painted."

But James doesn’t make domesticity the cure for dangerous passion. In "Before something burns or bursts," after John Collier’s Priestess of Delphi, the woman is again incandescent, surrounded by red, suspended in "all / possible futures." By now the intensity that once seemed to belong to Blue looks as though it may always have belonged to the narrator herself.

Near the end, "Restoration" gives us the narrator at her most knowing. Paintings fade; restoration uncovers details but cannot return an artwork to its original state. "Some loves can live on, undamaged, beyond their initial context,” she concludes, “but it takes more than just a shared passion."

In the final poem, "My last unsent letter," Blue is summer sky, lake and sea, shared now with the man with whom the narrator has made another life. But I don’t entirely believe her, and I don’t think the collection requires me to. "I still carry a small flame of you with me," she admits. Even the title "My last unsent letter" makes "last" feel provisional. Which of us has been left untouched by the people we have loved?

Then comes one of the book’s most satisfying returns. Up close, blue is "distance’s illusion." The sea that Neptune’s Horse appeared to drink at the beginning was never something that could be swallowed or possessed.

So Blue does not disappear. Nor does the woman who wanted him.

I finished the book thinking about the whole thing rather than individual poems: about what had happened to me as a reader while moving through its paintings, and how differently I understood the first pages by the time I reached the last. The collection is the poem. And it is a very good one.

About the reviewer
Jessica Mookherjee is the author of three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press, Flood, Tigress (shortlisted for Ledbury Prize) and Notes from a Shipwreck. Her fourth collection Universe is an Animal is due for publication in November 2026 with Nine Arches Press. She’s also the author of Desire Lines (Broken Sleep Books). She works in public health and lives in Kent. 

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Everything Is Tuberculosis" by John Green

In many ways, the writings of the Green brothers have grown up with me. While I could never really call myself a ‘fan’ of their YouTube content, more like a casual enjoyer, I was perfectly primed at thirteen to devour all of John Green’s YA novels, and again when Hank Green released his sci-fi duology a few years later. 

This book marks John Green’s second entry into adult non-fiction after The Anthropocene Reviewed in 2021, tracing the progress and persistence of tuberculosis throughout human history, and comes at a time when I am far older and seeking more depth to the literature I consume. Reading like part autobiography, part medical journal, part anthropology lesson, Green expertly weaves the intimate story of a young TB patient from Sierra Leone, Henry, throughout this book as both an anchor point for the reader and a persistent reminder of the very real and human consequences when disease treatment becomes socio-political. The stories of Henry’s mother and his doctor, that exemplified the monumental barriers those in developing countries face compared to the laughably easy treatment of TB in first-world countries, were especially moving. 

I was also fascinated by the chapter on the romanticism of TB, connected with hundreds of artists and creatives throughout history, culminating in the beautiful poetry written by Henry in the depths of his illness. If you’re hesitant on non-fiction, I would highly recommend this as a starting point, and especially the audiobook narrated by Green himself.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Rottenheart" by Kat Dunn

After chomping through Hungerstone and going to Kat Dunn’s author talk in Birmingham Waterstones, I picked up a signed copy of her new novel Rottenheart, a Victorian sapphic retelling of Hamlet with a fun gender-swapped twist. Somehow, despite Hungerstone being a violent vampiric tale, this one felt notably darker, which perhaps makes sense considering the prevalent themes of grief, hysteria and corruption woven through the original play and this Victorian version. 

Something that really stuck with me during Dunn’s talk was the concept of ghosts as the mind becoming an unreliable narrator, conjuring visions that reflect a tormented inner psyche and the terror of no longer being able to trust your own senses. Without spoiling the ending, this certainly comes through clearly in Rottenheart, with Odette’s haunting grief turning her to a revenge-driven shadow of herself, and the tragic Cecilia as she tries to pull her lover back from the brink. 

I particularly enjoyed the disjointed structure of the novel, jumping back and forth in time from either side of Lydia’s death, and how even the villains contained a fraction more nuance and depth compared to those in Hungerstone. My only complaint would be it was a touch long with little action in places, but I suppose that is only accurate to the themes of the original play after all – and here, the hesitation actually makes sense considering the gender-swap, and only adds to the poignancy of Odette’s pain as she rails to be understood by a society that discounts her female perspective over and over again.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Mariella Bucci of "Hungerstone" by Kat Dunn

I discovered this sapphic retelling of Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu via a YouTube video by one of my favourite cultural analysis creators Shanspeare, titled "Let Women Eat (Flesh): Cannibalism in Fiction." Within two chapters of reading, I experienced the same voracious hunger for this story that both Shania and the novel’s protagonist, Lenore, cannot quell. 

Dunn has a beautiful and intriguing narrative voice, crafting landscape and character and dialogue in scenes that read like haunting Gothic tapestries. Hungerstone is a Bayeux-like narrative that tracks Lenore’s journey towards reclaiming her power, against the backdrop of a life of people-pleasing and suppressing her deepest desires and wants. Like all good Gothic literature – and it was my specialist subject in my Literature degree – the cast is suitably archetypal, from the villainous husband Henry to the waifish, naive friend Cora. But the star of the show is of course, Carmilla herself. Dunn never uses the word "vampire," but she doesn’t need to. Carmilla is romantic, seductive and transgressive, and you feel the shift from annoyance to empowerment in Lenore from Carmilla’s careful encouragement / manipulation.

The novel is medium-paced, with the plot interspersed by flashbacks to Lenore’s childhood, and the ending is appropriately gory and thoroughly satisfying. Even though I read this in the height of summer, I already feel an autumnal, rain-spattered, candlelit re-read coming – as Dunn surely intended.

About the reviewer

Mariella Bucci is a writer and creative based in the West Midlands. She is drawn to the understanding and analysis of what makes a compelling story in any medium, from her work in the film and television industry to essays and reviews on her Substack, @mariellamusings. Offline, you will most often find her nose-deep in a novel between sets at the gym.

Review by Nancy Dawkins of "In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens" by Katherine Howey

"Beggin’ pardon, Miss, why’s a respectable young lady like you a-going to the Pleasure Gardens? Don’t you know they has the most prodigious bad reputation, and ain’t no place for a lady unaccompanied?" Katherine Howey’s debut novel, In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, follows Lucinda, a young soldier’s daughter, who arrives in London in the late 1700s after fleeing the American Revolutionary wars. Lucinda begins, it seems, as a typical historical heroine: naïve, thrown into a new and unfamiliar world, tasked with learning a new job as a seamstress. Her forays into society and the meeting of a wealthy gentlemen may set a reader up to believe that a Cinderella story is about to unfold. Perhaps, after meeting with a few trifling difficulties, Lucinda will get married and all will be tied in a neat Austen-like bow? But who is the mysterious doctor, William Browne, who bursts, singing and swinging, onto the page? 

The realities of being a woman in the eighteenth century, and of the harsh divisions of class in that time, become immediately apparent as Lucinda’s fairytale turns dark. A sudden and misunderstood illness strikes Lucinda, leaving her unable to perform her roles, either as a seamstress, or as an eligible woman in society. What follows for Lucinda is a Dickensian fall through the cracks of London. For a modern reader, it is clear that Lucinda’s illness resembles a chronic disability like M. E. or fibromyalgia, but to her contemporaries in the book, her illness is incomprehensible, appearing fabricated even. In Vauxhall pleasure Garden does not shy away from the traumatic realities of being a young woman, alone and disabled, in times gone by. Lucinda is not a perfect heroine, she is frequently disempowered, doesn’t know where to turn, and chooses the wrong people to trust. Nevertheless, she manages to support herself in inventive ways, and forge friendships and a life, however unconventional. 

In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens tells a story that is often missing from historical fiction, the story of a woman who did not, and who because of disability could not, follow the paths laid out for women in that time, but who managed to survive. I finished the novel, the first in a series, ready to read the second, wondering what lies ahead for Lucinda; what really happened to William Browne, will Alex Henderson find her at the Inn, and will she see Jem again?

About the reviewer
Nancy Dawkins is a poet and musician from Leicester. Her writing has been published in print and online, including in The Leicester Literary Review and Heroica. She was shortlisted for the inaugural role of Leicester Poet Laureate in 2025, and was longlisted for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition 2024. 

You can read more about In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens by Katherine Howey on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Sally Shaw of "Under a Pink Sky" by Esther Ghey

Under A Pink Sky is a memoir written by Esther Ghey, that takes the reader into the darkest depths of growing up and an unimaginable death of a child. Ghey guides the reader back into the sunlight and a place of hope through action. 

The title puts Brianna at the heart of the book. Ghey recounts a  moment after the death of her daughter when the sky was a vibrant pink. "'Look!' I exclaim, pointing up. The sky is covered in a thick, undulating pink duvet. It is heartbreakingly beautiful. The slow-flowing canal looks like a strip of pink. Alisha, Wes and I hold each other a little closer. 'She’s here,' I say. 'I can feel her.' How did I know it was her? I really don’t like the colour pink - I used to try my best to get her to wear anything other than pink - but pink was not just a colour to her, it was a way of life. So of course, as with anything to do with my extremely determined child, she would  paint the sky pink, and not just any pink, a French Fancy pink, just to remind me who was still queen." 

As Ghey tells the story of her own teenage years, the effects of her mum becoming a foster parent and the relationship with her mum as a small child, then as a teenager, I found that Ghey was searching for an understanding of what has changed from her childhood to Brianna’s childhood. What makes this so difficult is that Ghey couldn’t find that understanding while Brianna was struggling with growing up and finding her place in the world. Ghey speaks honestly and frankly about her behaviour from the age of eleven, the role education played and the influence of older children. Ghey discovered that playing the cheeky-clown no longer made her peers like her once she moved into high school. "If the cheeky-clown act wasn’t going to work, I would mimic what I had seen at home. I knew how the tough kids talked and I knew the reaction it got. I would not be pushed and shoved in the hallways, so I started to act up. I talked back to teachers to disguise the fact that I couldn’t cope. I would do anything to hide my insecurity, but it really was all an act." As Ghey describes Brianna’s difficulties in school, she questions herself as to why she was unable to identify the similarities of how education impacted her and then her daughter twenty-five years later. 

As the story of Brianna’s life and death unfolds, Ghey tells it from her viewpoint, never assuming she can give Brianna’s opinion. I found her honesty about the mother and daughter relationship touched my heart and helped me understand the complex reality that teenagers find themselves in today. What became clear was the influences the smart phone brought into Brianna’s life and that these were impacting how Brianna saw herself and society. "At school she was relatively safe, but the real bullies were in her pocket. They would follow her into her room and into her head." These bullies take on many forms, but the one thing they all have in common is they lurk within social media. Ghey informs the reader of the dangers of social media, how these platforms are managed to ensure children become addicted. 

Along with the addictive power of social media, the content manipulates teenagers to think and act in ways that are harmful. The way this is achieved and the influences on Brianna and others are beyond the scope of this review. "When she emerged, it was TikTok Brianna, wearing her school skirt provocatively short, lots of make-up and a persona that was being built on social media but with which she strutted into school." This made me question what would Brianna be like without this influence; would she feel the same with different role models from peers, society and history? 

As Brianna moves further into her teenage years she constantly uses her phone, making self-care videos on TikTok, gaining many followers while retreating into her bedroom, led away from her family and friends by social media algorithms. At school the phone dominates her behaviour and her ability to take part in education. Ghey documents their journey through trying to gain support and answers. When Brianna texts her mum that she’s on a bus to meet a friend, Ghey describes why this appeared to be a positive step, unaware this would be the last text.

Through this book I have gained insight into today’s childhood or rather how that childhood is dissolving into the digital world, where your worth is measured by likes, followers and social media challenges. If a child doesn’t have a phone they’re a nobody, yet if they have a phone they’re in danger. Education becomes invisible and the breadcrumbs back to childhood have been devoured by influencers. The message that Ghey gives is we, as parents, siblings, family, friends and society, have to maintain hope through action and love. Ghey, through her organisation The Brianna Ghey Legacy Project, is campaigning for a phone-free education, as well as working alongside side other organisations campaigning to reduce the risks of social media. Under A Pink Sky is relevant to everyone and has educated me about the possible dangers held within my phone. 

 

About the reviewer
Sally has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including the Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. 
Sally lives in the countryside. 

Review by Julie Gardner of "Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary: Reflection, Influence, Process," ed. Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor

Anyone studying Creative Writing at undergraduate or post-graduate level is almost certainly required to write a critical commentary to accompany each piece of creative work they submit. The first time I was asked to provide one, whilst studying for an MA, I wrote a lot about the work of writers who had influenced me but hardly anything about my own output so I was (quite rightly) criticised. If I had read Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary first, I think I would have done better. There were no published anthologies of critical commentaries then, but editors Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor have produced a book that, in their words, "aims to address that strange pedagogical gap." This book will, I am sure, soon be on the reading list for most Creative Writing courses in the UK and beyond. 

Stevens and Taylor suggest that the world of Creative Writing is a mirror-world: "You learn to write – or learn to write better – by reflecting on your own work and the work of others. The mirror-world reflects both yourself and your (literary) surroundings, and you learn by studying those reflections, by staring into the mirror." I like this image of a writer staring obsessively into a mirror, rather like Snow White’s stepmother. I’m not suggesting writers are evil or vain, but we can be insecure and we need to be willing to look at ourselves (or at least our work) carefully, paying close attention to small details.

Part One, which consists of the first three chapters, jointly written by the editors, acts as a thought-provoking and useful introduction to the main part of the book. For those in the early stages of their writing career, particularly if they are following a formal course at university or college, there are useful lists of what might be included in a critical commentary, with questions to consider. 

Part Two provides the twelve sample critical commentaries and it is this section that gives legitimacy to the editors' claim that "there seem to be no other books like this one." The contributing writers "have experience as both published authors and educators in higher education," and "encompass, in both spheres, all the major forms of writing (prose fiction, creative non-fiction, script writing, poetry and new media)." Each chapter ends with "Works Cited," an extensive and eclectic list for further reading.

I wondered if it would be frustrating to read the commentary without first having access to the creative work, and there were times when it was. Ideally, I would have liked to have read Stevens’ short story "Among the Crows" before I read her discussion around it, but, like all the contributors, she provides quotes from the original work and information about the content. As I worked my way through the chapters (Stevens’ commentary was the first) I decided that these essays worked perfectly well as discrete pieces. I found that I was applying what I was reading to, and finding inspiration for, my own practice. As a poet I was especially interested in Shaindel Beers’ essay, "Nature and Chance as Poetic Influence" and Lily Matsumoto’s "Experimental Poetic Autography: Writing the Languaged Self," but every chapter offered useful insights. I particularly enjoyed David Swann’s "commentary-in flash" about his novella-in flash, Season of Bright Sorrow. Kit de Waal also writes about flash fiction, comparing it to parables from the Bible: "both forms invite readers to engage deeply with the subtext, relying on suggestion and resonance rather than explicit explanation."  Dan Powell’s contribution, entitled "The End Is Never Where You Think," introduced me to Preclosure Theory. His chapter included the final two paragraphs of his short story, "Not the Fall," and I am eager to read it in its entirety and interested to see how that reading is affected by my prior reading of the commentary.

Anyone who believes that there is a formula for writing a critical commentary will, on reading this book, find that they are mistaken. The twelve essays are all very different in style and tone. What they do have in common is the writers' willingness to share openly about their own work and there is something generous about this. These are, in effect, masterclasses. Without doubt the book will be extremely useful to those tasked with writing critical commentaries, but it has much to offer all writers and indeed to many readers.

Stevens and Taylor make a bold claim for the critical commentary: "If approached with the same thoughtfulness as the creative work, they are not only profoundly helpful to an author, they might also stand as works of art in themselves." This book provides the evidence to support that claim. 

About the reviewer
Julie Gardner is working towards a Critical and Creative PhD at Nottingham Trent University. Her poetry pamphlet, Remembering, was published by Five Leaves in 2024.

You can read more about Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary on Creative Writing at Leicester here.