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Ian BrintonIsobar Press: A Canvas of Language In an article for PN Review in December 2014 Paul Rossiter gave an account of how he came to set up Isobar Press in Japan. Under the title ‘The Weather in Tokyo’ the article gave an account of the tradition of British and American poets living in Japan, a tradition which included of...

The London Magazine Short Story prize 2020/21 awards first place to Fernando Sdrigotti, after his short story ‘Pier’ impressed our panel of judges during this year’s competition. The response this year was overwhelming, and we would like to thank everyone who entered the competition. Submissions were read anonymously by our panel of judges, David Keenan (This is Memorial Device, For...

COLOMBIAN EDITION 2021 - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS For its special upcoming Colombian Edition for 2021, the year of Colombia and the UK, The London Magazine, with the support of Hay Festivals Colombia, is pleased to call for submissions in a wide range of forms to showcase Colombia’s literary, artistic and historical culture.  We are interested in Non-Fiction (Essays), Short Fiction and Poetry of the highest...

In 2019, travel photographer Christopher Wilton-Steer spent four months retracing the Silk Road, the historic trade route. Over a period of four months, he travelled 40,000 km overland by car, bus, train, ferry, horse and camel, traversing sixteen countries. He began his journey from London’s King’s Cross, where the show is staged (8th April 2021 until 16th June). The exhibition, which is sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation and presented in partnership with King’s Cross [...]

Submissions are now CLOSED for The London Magazine's Short Story Prize 2021.  The London Magazine has published short stories by some of the most well-respected literary figures over the course of its long history, from Jean Rhys to Raymond Carver and V.S. Pritchett. Our annual Short Story Competition seeks out new voices to join them. Established to encourage emerging literary talent,...

The London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction 2020, now in its third year, has been awarded to Nicole Flattery for Show Them a Good Time, a short story collection which puts a contemporary twist on dark humour. Matthew Scott, co-editor of The London Magazine, praised the author for her keen observational approach to short fiction, commenting how “Flattery observes common events...

The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2020 awards first place to Rosamund Taylor, for her poem 'The Proof', as part of its annual competition. Steven O'Brien, co-editor of The London Magazine, praised ‘The Proof’ for being “apt, polished and daring”, commenting further that “Rosumund Taylor's urgent, gem-like winning submission shows that the great linguistic machine of poetry still thrives. “Congratulations also go to the second and third prize winners Toby Campion [...]

This year, the judges have remarked on the extraordinary variety of offerings that is reflected in their shortlist and Matthew Scott, the chair of judges, comments that "though it's a cliché that the quality of submissions is ever improving, the excited enthusiasm of the judges across the board does seem to bear this out: it has been a rich year, and a wonderful one for reading - a rare positive in an otherwise extremely difficult time [...]

Biographers have three ways of dealing with their predecessors. They can generously thank them, ignore their achievement, or viciously attack them. Richard Greene (no relation to Graham) misleadingly links Michael Shelden’s deeply flawed book (l994) with Norman Sherry’s impressive three-volume 2,250-page work (1989-2004). Sherry conducted many interviews with Graham from 1904-91, and his first two volumes were perceptive and convincing. Richard calls [...]

Eric BlockKaren Ashton on Viral Art Car Boot Fair The first ever digital Viral Art Car Boot Fair on Sunday 20 September will see over 100 artists selling original work created especially for the event at bargain prices through the new Art Car Boot Fair (ACBF) website. The dazzling line-up of artists brings together familiar names such as Gavin Turk,...

‘I don’t get poetry.’ It’s a miserable cliché, but generation after generation takes it to heart. In fact, as a teenager studying for my GCSEs, I believed it myself. Still sporting K-Swiss trainers and a swooping Justin Bieber fringe long after it was a good look (if it ever was), I was stuck in my old ways. I was a novels person, I thought — poems were too brief to affect me deeply or really sear themselves onto my psyche [...]

Over the years The London Magazine has been home to some of the most prestigious poets in its long publishing history, from John Keats to Sylvia Plath and Derek Walcott. Our annual Poetry Prize seeks out new voices in poetry, providing a platform for publication in the UK’s oldest literary journal. All poems submitted must be previously unpublished and no longer than 40 lines. We have no criteria as to theme, form or style but we are looking for fresh [...]

There was never a fellow of such indolence as Bertie Wooster. Coronavirus would have suited him to a tee. While my lockdown has been largely a case of frenetic juggling of editing and teaching I have had some distinctly Woosterish moments. On two warm summer evenings I found myself in the great company of Wodehouse as I reclined on a lounger, while others did all the serious work around me [...]

Rick Gekoski awoke one morning from uneasy dreams and inexplicably found himself metamorphosed into a writer of fiction. He was seventy-three years old, a retired academic, former Booker prize judge and Chair, broadcaster, bibliographer, private press publisher, journalist and rare book dealer. He had never published a word of fiction. His novel, Darke (2017) was prompted by an insistent inward voice, and its author was called “a late-flowering genius of a novelist” in The Times [...]

The Southbank Centre has announced a new public art and poetry project celebrating the invaluable contributions of key workers who have kept the country running during the COVID-19 crisis. Everyday Heroes will comprise original portraits - whether in the form of paintings, drawings, photographs and texts - reproduced as large scale posters for a dynamic display across the Southbank Centre from mid August to November 2020. The portraits are to be shown [...]

We ask readers to be aware that the production team remains working from home and that print times are inevitably somewhat slower than usual with the result that print copies of the June/July issue of the magazine have been delayed, available on back order and may take a week or so longer than expected to reach you. The June/July Supplementary Pamphlet will be released mid-June so may arrive separately for some orders [...]

With publishers big and small struggling through the current crisis, it is important for us to shine a spotlight on small presses, the work that they do and the books and authors that they publish. Recently recognised among the nine regional and country winners in the Small Press of the Year Award at the 2020 British Book Awards, today we shine the spotlight on four of the best small presses currently publishing in the UK and Ireland: Jacaranda Books, Sandstone Press, Comma Press and The Lilliput Press [...]

The London Magazine has launched its debut fiction prize, formerly known as the Collyer Bristow Prize, for a third year running. The award will be administered by the magazine’s editorial team. First launched in May 2018, the prize aims to celebrate exceptional literary fiction, inviting publishers to submit one debut work of fiction each that was published in the previous calendar year. This can include collections of fiction by a sole author, but the book must be in its original [...]

On 17th June 1976, Robert Greacen, Northern Irish poet and colleague of Chris Rice at a private language school in Holland Park, hosted the first of his poetry workshops from his flat in Pembridge Crescent, Notting Hill Gate. As the junior member at that first meeting, Chris kept a diary of the group’s comings and goings, and continued to do so for the next six years. The extracts below trace a ten-month period from the first meeting in a small flat in Notting Hill Gate to the group’s first public reading in Sloane Square [...]

There has arguably never been a better time for reading, and we at The London Magazine have plunged ourselves into books of all shapes and sizes this month. Although many of the reads here explore weighty themes, our aim for April was to focus more on remedial or escapist books, rather than literature about isolation. We hope there will...

Things were not so free back then, but I was. Still a girl, living in my body. We’d been at the pictures, her dad and me, slurping pop, finding each other’s hands in the space for drinks. He waited until we got to the station to kiss me, which seemed so out of character. I’d seen no proof of happiness in marriage and dishwashers, so when he asked me back to his flat, I didn’t mind. It wasn’t 'beyond' I was after [...]

Château de Pommard releases three series of free live online experiences revisiting Burgundy’s famous wine road. From Gevrey-Chambertin to Meursault, customers will embark on a virtual journey across La Route des Grands Crus, exploring the prestigious appellations of Côte de Beaune et Côte de Nuits from the comfort of their own home. The first chapter of experiences, a general deep...

The London Magazine Short Story prize 2019/20 awards first place to Rachel Bower, after her short story ‘Against the Tide’ impressed our panel of judges during this year’s competition. The response was overwhelming, and we would like to thank everyone who entered to the competition this year. [...]

I am thrilled to have won The London Magazine Short Story Prize, and would like to thank the panel of judges and everyone involved for their time and energy in making this happen, especially during such challenging times. I am sorry not to be able to offer my thanks in person, but hope to meet everyone in the future, when we are through the current crisis [...]