BackStory: Five Questions with Joyce Bingham Author of The Inheritance What inspired you to write ‘The Inheritance’? I was given a prompt to write about entering a room at a ghost story workshop. I found I was writing about a…
The Inheritance
The Inheritance by Joyce Bingham I have never been alone in this room. The heavy door closes behind me, the rest of the house hidden from sight and I from them. My footsteps falter. I look down at my feet…
BackStory: Six Questions with Mary Byrne
BackStory: Six Questions with Mary Byrne Author of A Quiet Day in Hell What inspired you to write ‘A Quiet Day in Hell’? The house where we used to live in Normandy was an old presbytery built 20 years before…
A Quiet Day in Hell
A Quiet Day in Hell by Mary Byrne In a corner of verdant countryside, a priest’s mother is washing an accumulated several months of linen sheets in a giant pot over an outdoor fire. She moves them around occasionally, raising…
BackStory: Four Questions with Karen Walker
BackStory: Four Questions with Karen Walker Author of The 1796 Spinning Wheel List What inspired you to write ‘The 1796 Spinning Wheel List’? Looking for my ancestors in The 1796 Spinning Wheel (also known as The Irish Flax Growers) List.…
The 1796 Spinning Wheel List
The 1796 Spinning Wheel List by Karen Walker Pursuant to the Scheme offered for encouraging the Growth of Flax throughout the Kingdom, to the Person who shall sow a quantity of land with a sufficient quantity of good sound Flax,…
BackStory: Five Questions with Nicola Davison
BackStory: Five Questions with Nicola Davison Author of Der Bibliophile What inspired you to write ‘Der Bibliophile’? I was searching online for something completely unrelated when I came across a photograph of book burning in Germany, 1933. It stole my…
Der Bibliophile
Der Bibliophile by Nicola Davison My timeworn lungs buckle, but I don’t want to close the window. I push it wide open to be reacquainted with Freud, Kafka, and Hemingway as they rise, shifting and swirling to reach me. It…
BackStory: Four Questions with Q.Y. Tie
BackStory: Four Questions with Q.Y. Tie Author of The Peony Hairpin What inspired you to write ‘The Peony Hairpin’? For a while, harem dramas—period dramas centred on palace intrigue among the emperor’s concubines—were all the rage in mainland China. You…
The Peony Hairpin
The Peony Hairpin by Q.Y. Tie The empress dowager whispers open the seals between her selves. The empress stabs the dying emperor with her peony hairpin, watches his blood spurt in impossibly bright streaks, listens to his impossibly hurt accusations.…