The Venatio – an extract

LUKE GILFEDDER tells a dark tale of Cheshire Crime writer Stephen Niskus suspects that his long-lost school friend, Alexei Orphonov, is a serial killer. When he catches sight of Alexei in Alderley Edge, he embarks upon an urgent quest to prevent another murder. But Stephen's investigations soon lead him into a far more tangled and…

9/11: premonition of disaster

Credit: Shutterstock GOMERY KIMBER believes there really can be second-sight On the afternoon of September 11th 2001 I was making notes for a story I planned to write about the ghost of a slave ship captain. I’d already named the ghost Noah, but I couldn't think of a suitable surname. I sat there, pen in hand, awaiting…

The War Party – extract

'Hypnos', Wilhelm von Gloeden This is Chapter Thirteen of GOMERY KIMBER's novel, The War Party, the second book of the Big Shilling trilogy. 'Verity Clissold wants the whistle-blower terminated. But he's taken refuge in a London embassy and not even the CIA can reach him. There is only one solution. Call in the most accomplished…

Five poems by Claudia Gary

CLAUDIA GARY's latest chapbook is Genetic Revisionism. She is also author of Humor Me (David Robert Books, 2006) and earlier chapbooks including Bikini Buyer's Remorse and Epicurigrams. A writing instructor, health journalist, and composer of art songs and chamber music, she lives near Washington D.C. Her workshops at The Writer's Center (writer.org) on Villanelle, Sonnet, Natural Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, and other…

The battle for the soul of a Kentish village

Credit: Shutterstock STUART MILLSON reports from semi-rural England The earliest settlement to have occupied the ground that we now know as East Malling, Kent, is thought to have been Roman, although who knows what band of ancient Britons wandered and settled the area before the Legions and arrow-straight roads came to our shores. Fragments of…

Charlie Watts, 1941-2021 – the solidest Stone

Credit: Terry Murden/Shutterstock CHRISTOPHER SANDFORD salutes the most grounded member of the Rolling Stones There can be few terms in the English language more debased than ‘rock star’. Nowadays, it seems, the press makes a fetish of every halfway plausible such chancer to appear over the horizon, regardless of whether their art will endure, or…

Chapter 4 – Vortigern and Hengist

This is Part 4 of LIAM GUILAR’s almost completed epic of Britain. Chapter One was published in Long Poem Magazine #25 Spring 2021, and Chapters Two and Three in The Brazen Head The story so far: 449 AD in the Roman province of Britannia. The Legions have long gone and raiders and civil war are…

Marooned in Van Diemen’s Land

IAN C. SMITH’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds, The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, San Pedro River Review , Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two Thirds North.  His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).  He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders…

Requiem for a recluse

IAN C. SMITH’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds, The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, San Pedro River Review , Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.…