East Bengal, 1971 by Mehreen Ahmed It was lunch time in Madhupur. Taramon, a motherless farmer’s daughter of 24, was just getting ready to sit down with her four siblings for lunch. Their father had left for the field early…
BackStory: Four Questions with Cathy Ulrich
BackStory: Five Questions with Cathy Ulrich Author of Something That Can Never be Held What inspired you to write ‘Something That Can Never be Held’? I recently got a new book about Bonnie and Clyde (side note: it’s fine, but…
Something That Can Never be Held
Something That Can Never be Held by Cathy Ulrich You are being photographed with a stolen camera. You are pretending to smoke a cigar, you are wearing your best dress, you are holding a shotgun. You are going to…
BackStory: Five Questions with Carolyn Oliver
BackStory: Five Questions with Carolyn Oliver Author of Infanta What inspired you to write ‘Infanta’? I intended this piece as a companion to Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, a stately dance that, thanks to its title, tends (for me,…
Infanta
Infanta by Carolyn Oliver after Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess Infanta, you dance as a gull sways on a salt breeze, as a fan swings closed between jewelled fingers, as a whisper stalls in a hot room. Eyes tally…
BackStory: Five Questions with Philip Charter
BackStory: Five Questions with Philip Charter Author of The anatomy of a hurdy-gurdy What inspired you to write ‘The anatomy of a hurdy-gurdy’? I had an idea about a musician who plays a hopelessly old-fashioned instrument and settled on the…
The anatomy of a hurdy-gurdy
The anatomy of a hurdy-gurdy by Philip Charter The curve of the body is yours. Wooden lines live and breathe. I cradle you, as if you were still a part of me, but you are not. My instrument is angular…
Timeline: FlashBack’s Seventh Season
Timeline: FlashBack’s Seventh Season In case you’ve missed any of these brilliant pieces, here is a round-up of the work we published in this past season, in chronological order. (And, as always, you can find our entire back catalogue on…
BackStory: Four Questions with Anne Summerfield
BackStory: Four Questions with Anne Summerfield Author of Not a Rehearsal How much research did you do while writing and editing this piece? Did you discover anything that surprised you? The majority of the research I did was fact checking…
Not a Rehearsal
Not a Rehearsal by Anne Summerfield We should have gone to Greenham and slept under the tarpaulins, under the stars. We said we would, knew too that there was more at stake than protest. Hadn’t I skipped my work’s Christmas…