“Saira turned to Joe, open-mouthed. She’d already de-coded the first paragraph and couldn’t believe it. ‘What’s up?’ ‘Wait till you hear this,’ she said, her voice trembling. Dear Saira, First

“Even a stone has a soft spot  a worn through hole after years  of attrition, a heart  whose emptiness is its strength,  as in how a mill grinds wheat  and

“It is the summer of 1880, and Detective Inspector Sam McQueen has been called away from the grey, damp streets of Edinburgh to investigate a case on the oppressively hot

“Each daybreak for a week, we crept out of our dark basement, towards the magic of the river. In my excitement to follow Elisabetta, I barely slept. ‘You look like

“Soon after we got here we learnt the words for go away. There are two words for go away and one of them is stronger than the other. Also, we

“You wake up and think of her. Try not to check your phone till you’ve had a cup of tea. A bowl of cereal. You tell yourself that having a

“Back in the car you call your wife and imagine her sitting by the window of her hotel room looking out on the shitty weather, feeling shitty herself. She answers

“The security guard grasped the dog’s lead and prepared for another sweep of the property. It was 5 a.m., the sky a wash of pale blue although the sun had

“They decided he fell. It makes sense now. Walking to the school and seeing it from this distance shows how high that drop is. A four-storey, thirty-foot imaginary line runs

“The central heating had reached lethargy point. Jamie’s eyelids were already sliding into several second blinks and he knew a television-induced semi-coma was imminent if he surrendered. But he would

“The moon, heavy and brimming with light, casts a blueish hue over the fresh layer of snow.  Hurriedly dressed for the journey, Richard huddles into his cloak. He’s unused to

“I will never stop believing in fairies but we don’t call them fairies where I’m from. We call them gods.” From ‘Selected Poems’– included in the showcase

“KEN: Oh you do do you? (Frankie looks at him straight in the eyes and nods) But the rules are the rules and they say you need to be eleven

“The road snakes through caramel desert, from the rustic harbor to Aden’s only functioning hospital. The sun is yellow and white, shades of my headache. Seatbelt-free, the driver pushes the

“As we look at the state of play in the modern era, we still see persistent issues of racial discrimination. A good example of this is the Human Genome Project.

“Screaming, a sound to stop the heart and freeze the blood. Someone was in trouble. Daniel ran, afraid of what he would find but determined to save the poor creature

“Jamila presses the power button on her phone to silence the vibration from her mother’s call as she wheels her suitcase to the boarding queue. After a thirty-minute delay, they

“It’s a very long time since I got the binoculars out and spotted a plane, but I still dream about them. Often. Not quite a recurring nightmare, but a recurring

“What struck me most about the picture, though, was how happy they looked. Mom especially. I’d never seen her like this before, I realised – so carefree. It made me