Volume 4 includes 17 stories, including one by Helen Dunmore.
Read an extract and view issue contents below.
Extract:
Celia’s mum’s rat – David Gaffney
I was alone, away from home, and bored, so I lay on the hotel bed and scrolled through the names in my mobile phone. It was then I came across the strange entry. Celia’s mum’s rat.
I had no idea Celia’s mother owned a rat. And if Celia’s mother owned a rat, why had she felt the need to buy it a mobile phone? And why had I at some point needed the rat’s number, and needed it frequently enough to enter it into the phone’s memory? Or, rather, felt a need to know that if the rat called, I would know who it was. Maybe at some point I had decided to avoid the rat’s calls or at least wanted time to prepare an excuse as to why I wouldn’t be able to assist the rat. Yet surely, if Celia’s mum’s rat were important enough to own its own phone, the rat would have a name? After all, we didn’t call Celia’s mum’s boyfriend, Celia’s mum’s boyfriend. We called him Raymond.
Table of Contents
Introduction – Jane Feaver v
The Voice, the Fish Woman and the Coconut Girlie – Joel Willans 1
Sammy – Nicholas Hogg 7
Bhai and the Manager – Anita Sivakumaran 17
My Flirtation with Karoshi – Michael Owen Fisher 29
Rip-off – Rachel Bentham 35
A Mountain Fastness – Henry Shukman 41
Replacing the towers with rainbows + other short tales – David Gaffney 53
Breaking Taboos – Kachi A. Ozumba 63
Teeth – Krishan Coupland 75
A Milking Lesson – Philippa de Burlet 81
The Conservator – Anna Lunk 89
Introducing Kendra – Gemma Rutter 93
My cousin who could catch flies and tickle fish with his bare hands – Mark Czanik 101
Little Things – Eleanor Knight 113
Reef – Jane Draycott 119
Yusef – Graham Mort 125
The Dahlia Bed – Helen Dunmore 139
Contributors 145