Atween the Wind an the Wa | John Aberdein

"Cranreuch cauld wis the tarmac bauld, / The gled i the laverock's sheddie; / Ah masel for the haar-tooteroo / Wis tuckt up in ma beddie..." John Aberdein's novels have won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and the Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year Award.

A Reverie Through Stone | Deepanshi Matai

"plain gold earrings: you never wore any others. i have a pair that looks exactly like yours. i never wear any others. sometimes when i hold these, it feels like you’re still here, standing behind me..."

Slum Clearances | Hannah Linden

"There were never no back-going / once it gone, it gone and no / point remembering something / no body for..." Hannah Linden's first home community in the North of the UK was demolished as part of a slum clearance programme.

I drove to west virginia when the weather was warm | Matthew Dettmer

"josh is telling a story about wearing night vision goggles in afghanistan and 'I’m proud to be an american' is playing for the second time maybe the third time on the speakers in the bar..."

Septimus | Lucie Bonvalet

"Septimus had always had a fondness for cephalopods. The poetry of suction cups, the grace of tentacles, the strangeness of their beaks, the mysterious flexibility of their heads..."

Bodies in the Storm | Lerato Ramodike

"Abdullah thinks of the olive tree growing in the backyard that he used to have. How, a week after the airstrike, his wife had gone back to search for an olive to plant. She found that the entire tree had burned down. She wept as though she had lost a son..."