Detail of the cover for Red. Designed by Sudeep Sen In the golden age of Dutch painting, a master like Vermeer or Gerard Dou would often withhold a single work. This was the pronkstuk, the showpiece. It was not commissioned by a patron, nor intended for the wall of a rich Dutch merchant. It remained…

Dad held the onion in his left hand. In his right, a small paring knife. And he cut. Photograph by Iqbal Farooz Instinct, inheritance and becoming a Masaalchi by Arun Kapil My father never learned how to chop an onion. At least, not in the way I would later be taught. There was no…

Study for Leda and the Swan (now lost), c. 1506–1508, Chatsworth House, England Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Sylvia Vetta is a British author, journalist, and community activist whose work explores the intersections of gender, class, and race. Raised working-class in Luton, she married her Indian-born husband Atam Vetta at a time of widespread hostility toward mixed marriages, an…

Mr Yip. Photograph David Yip by David Yip My new job as is, again, in the Lake District, in Coniston. I was interviewed by the owner for the Assistant Manager position and explained that I needed two set days off to be home for my dad. He agreed and explained that the current restaurant…

UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections Public Domain           B&B and the Schencks by Norman B. Schwarz When Al Capone was finally indicted by the federal government in 1931, it was not for his usual practices of prostitution, extortion, gambling, and bootlegging. The government could not gather enough evidence to…

Illustration Phil Hall Dustin Pickering is an autodidact, and a noteworthy figure in contemporary US literature and the arts. He is a poet, visual artist, publisher, interviewer and workshop leader. His poetry explores love, faith and cosmology. He also creates satirical cartoons that gently spoof religion and politics. His writings have appeared in Huffington Post, Los…

Photograph by Shubham Thakur on Pexels From the working collection, The Stories That Repeat Us A child to be ignored for collected poems (For Imtiaz Dharker: “It is too early for your Collected Poems”) there are a few a petrified child inheadmaster’s officechaddies ready to get wet frosted glass on his doora greatness of…

Author photograph by Sudeep Sen John Webster was born in 1953 and lives in Oxford. Involved in independent publishing and music since leaving school, his work in music has produced an album of songs with lyrics by the Romantic poets Keats, Shelley, Byron and Leigh Hunt called The First Fab Four and an album…

Photograph by Ben Gunn Valentina Rojas was born in Envigado, Antioquia, in 1998. She is a poet, editor, teacher, workshop facilitator, and cultural promoter whose work has appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and digital literary outlets across Colombia and beyond. Her poems have been translated into English, Italian, Arabic, and Portuguese, and have been…

Umberto Eco in 1984. Photograph Bogaerts, Rob / Anefo Public Domain by Abraham Chinchillas The starting point is the point of no return. It is the reaction that germinates while the action is brewing. It is the dress rehearsal with lights and an audience. It is number zero. First published in English a little…