Porridge

Little Big Stories Everywhere – Jen Schneider

With each dawn, dialogue, and downturn – downpours, too ergonomics and economies dictate energy. Economic impacts expand far beyond employment and stories drop – downstairs in the kitchen, too. Hope blooms eternal, the saying goes. Spring, too. Perennials – candy cane sorrels and blue grape hyacinths. Annuals – geraniums, impatiens. Patiently impatient. Waiting for the…

A Perfect Cadence – Sinéad Price

There is an art to falling. Sacrificing soul, limb and touch to the whim of this tempest. To cross that distance, to breach that space is not the effect of passion, but of passivity. It is the ultimate paradox. To shut off all senses but one, to enfeeble the power of the ever-wandering mind, until…

ONE POEM – Jenny Wong

The fish
fillets are thawing
for their pan-fried debut.

Growing Young – Eve Davies

If there’s one thing one can observe in a residential care home, it is the necessity of humour throughout life. It is true that the human body ages in a cycle. Through life we travel the circumference of a circle. We begin a reliant baby, we start to learn, we grow up, become an adult,…

ONE POEM – Sally Michaelson

giddy with the scent
we pipette the peppermint
into the mixture

COMFORT FOODS // Sour moon – Ieva Grigelionyte

The first important thing in making fermented cabbage is to choose a good cabbage head.

ONE POEM – Emma Wells

a cheeping beak breaks forth
scenting balmy air:
swirls of hyacinths waft
in warm, hour-less days –

Frickin’ Lion – Ann Kathryn Kelly

Olive the (lion) dog. Image by Andrea Farrow, via Instagram The mane streams behind the dog as it tears across weathered gray floorboards. “Frickin’ lion.” The seven-second Instagram reel auto-loops on my Thursday lunch hour and I become obsessed with this dog that I later find out belongs to my colleague Jessica’s sister, Andrea. I…

THREE POEMS – Eleanor Scorah

I felt autumn and you weren’t in it

Umbrology – Brian McNely

I stepped off the plane in Helsinki – airport code HEL – and found a restroom. Standing at a urinal, I heard birdsong piped through overhead speakers: odd, soothing, out of place. The train to downtown Helsinki departs from a giant, cool tunnel many meters below street level. The platform is nearly empty. Massive faux-tapestries…

ONE POEM – Aimee Nicole

How many fried eggs do I have to eat to heal these broken bones?

Two Cultures, Again – Kate Venables

I am a student in a creative writing programme, a mature student, from a professional background as an epidemiologist. Amongst ourselves, we students don’t really talk about ‘creativity’. We talk a lot about craft and sometimes we talk about ourselves and the way in which how we feel affects our writing. But rarely about ‘creativity’…