Issue 34

(First Time Published Slot) Having worked in local Government in Northern Ireland for forty-three years within the Environmental Health Profession, during my last 10 years in the profession, I served Southern Group Environmental Health Committee as its Group Chief Environmental Health officer. During my career I was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and more recently served as its President in Northern Ireland. One of the highlights of my career

Afra Ahmad is a writer, poet, artist, and calligrapher. Based in Taiwan, she holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature. She writes about everything under the sun, from dark societal issues to problems faced by teenagers, imparting chunks of wisdom through her poems, stories, and write-ups. Her works have appeared in various magazines, including Iman Collective, MYM, Rather Quiet, Ice Floe Press, Olney Magazine, The Malu Zine, The Sophon Lit, Blue Minaret, Melbourne Cult

Anthony loves the way words sound through silence. He is inspired by the nature of the world and the expression of art as humanity decrees to discover itself. He writes to express the overwhelming beauty of the natural world with the inspiring admiration of artistic creativity. He has recently been published in, Jerry Jazz Musician, Literary Yard, Shot Glass Journal , and Dear Booze, amongst others. Overcast The weather forecast headlines rain Though it’s only rain at nine Th

RammelkampJC@Gmail.com Doomed Diva Théophile Gautier coined the phrase. The poet called Giulia Grisi, the Italian opera singer, circa 1830s, “goddess” to describe her sublime talent, her soaring arias for Bellini and Rossini. Since then the word’s been used to label any fierce, passionate performer – Maria Callas, Beverly Sills, Judy Garland, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, and more: Martha Stewart, Serena Williams. But Grisi? Killed in a train accident on a trip to Saint Petersburg jus

Gareth Nurden was born in Newport, Wales in 1988 and has been writing poetry since his teenage years and has shifted his focus over recent years on the writing of Japanese micro-poetry in the styles of haiku, senryu and haiga. Gareth has had large success with having over one-hundred-seventy pieces published so far in seventeen countries worldwide in journals, websites, e-zines and blogs such as Modern Haiku, Presence, Hedgerow, Under The Basho, Wales Haiku Journal, Tsuri-Dor

Robert Paul Allen lives on a lake near the coast of Maine. He is surrounded daily by the state’s rugged beauty. He has been a serious poet for the past ten years and has published over 50 poems. His second chapbook, Full Circle , was published in June 2025. I Am Green You encounter me everywhere: a lush pasture’s verdant beauty, the lustre of paper money, a treehugger’s passion. The color you turn before you empty the whiskey sours from your stomach into the porcelain throne.

Claude Chabot has published over 20 short stories and has produced four radio plays based on his own stories. He addresses the conflicts and changes his characters experience while traveling, and also writes ghost stories, mysteries and myriad others. He has written one novel and is at work on two others. Hidden Crickets Tom sleeps with nothing but his blond hair curled around his shoulders in the sultry springs and humid summers of New York. Now during the damp winter he ha

Hello, I am an aspiring poet from North West England. I have won two Koestler Arts awards, including a platinum award (which was won for the poem “Birds Revisited”) and have been published in an anthology from 2023. I have been writing poetry since I was 17, it is a great passion of mine and I hope you will accept these poems for publication. Thank you for this opportunity. Afternoons I’ve always hated afternoons That smug grimace smudged across the clouds Relentless limbo be

Zara Lenon is an artist, poet and writer who is based in London. Her work has appeared in magazines and publications such as Anima Loci or The Anansi Archive, in relation to their sixth anthology, The Nine Lives of Billy Nightjar. She has a sharp eye for detail and a weird way with words; the aim being to create vivid worlds for the reader to lose themselves in, and craft colourful, memorable characters to populate them.  Positive Pineapple Smiling nonchalantly on the counter

S.P. Hannaway is drawn to the weird and wonderful. His stories have cropped up in journals such as  Lighthouse, Neon,   The Interpreter’s House,   Ambit,   Stand,  and  The Pomegranate London . His work was selected for the Bristol Story Prize ’21 anthology and the Crossing the Tees Story Prize ’24 anthology. He lives in London. Come the Fox His face, McBane can’t find his face. It isn’t there. Where is his scowl? Buff it! Work it! In his smalls, he trips round the mattre

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal was born in Mexico. His lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in print and online since the 1980's. His work has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Fixator Press, Impspired, Ink Sweat and Tears, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His books and chapbooks have been published by Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, FourFeathers Press, KendraSteiner Editions, New Pol

Peter Lingard, born a Briton, sold ice cream on railway stations, worked as a bank clerk, delivered milk, laboured in a large dairy and served in the Royal Marines.  He has also been a barman, an accountant and a farm worker.  He lived in the US for a while and owned a freight forwarding business in New York.  He came to Australia because the sun often shines here and Australians are a positive bunch who speak English.  Peter ( plingaus@bigpond.com ) is a member of the Phoeni

Colin Dardis is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently  with the lakes  (above/ground press, 2023) and  What We Look Like in the Future  (Red Wolf Editions, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist, his work has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. Colin is co-host of the long-running open mic night, Purely Poetry, held in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, and editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone. I Have Looked For Inspiration

Catherine Kay lives in Inishowen,  Donegal. Her writing was performed in the Waterside Theatre and at Ten x 9. She was highly commended in the Frances Browne Festival 2023.  Her poetry  has been published in the Storms Journal Anthology 4, Caught Alight: An Anthology (publisher: Impspired) and Dark Winter Press. Missing the 212 The door of the bright, welcoming Mona cafe swished shut behind Molly as she carried her coffee into the weak light of that dull Saturday. Making it a

Maureen Sheridan was born and raised in a small farming community just outside the village of Portglenone in Co. Antrim, N.Ireland. Life in the early nineteen fifties in that close-knit rural community was very different from the thrust and frenzy of today. Having studied English Language and Literature at Queen’s University Belfast, in the late nineteen seventies, I went on to spend the next forty years in teaching in the south of England. My final position was as Principal

I was born in Clones Co. Monaghan in 1962. At 19 years old I joined DUNNES STORES as a management trainee in Dublin and five years later I ended up in Belfast as a Branch Manager where I meet my wife Carole Robinson from Portrush, where we now live. I worked in most areas east of northern Ireland  and as an adult student I achieved an MSc in management change communication from Queen’s University in 2001. I have ran 10 marathons and I have a passion for Darts. I have three gr

Ronan still lives in the same small Armagh village where he was born in the early 1970s, and like almost all others reared in the wee North during that period had a soul indelibly smelt to a certain temper. Having studied and worked in Dublin and Glasgow, hes happy to be home again among the thriving descendants of the rabbits, ragwort and wynds of his youth. As long as the days keep coming, Ronan appreciates more and more the survival instincts of other abler civil servants

Alice is originally from Belfast and now lives and works on the North Coast. She has contributed to various Tenx9 storytelling events and enjoys writing about the intersection of the magical and the everyday. The Latin Name for Pigeon First week: new job. Familiar Campus: new role, blending the known and the new. Day one: lunch break. Walking through automatic doors, outside to in. Entering calm from wind.  To meet a flash of wings within.  Trapped in the hallway, high-ceilin

Angela Graham is from Belfast. Culture And Democracy Press published her poetry collection,  Star  in 2024 and next year will bring out  Exposure,  75 poems on media and war. Seren Books published her 2022 poetry collection,  Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere , and her short story collection,  A City Burning ,   2020   which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. She was a finalist in this year's Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. She won the Poetry Prize in the inaugural

I am a 24-year-old amateur writer currently based in Portstewart, Northern Ireland, where I’m completing a PhD in Geography. Originally from Derry, I studied at Ulster University in Coleraine and have remained on the North Coast to pursue both academic and creative work. My research focuses on place, memory, and emotional geographies — themes that often find their way into my prose. My writing explores the quieter edges of human experience: displacement, belonging, mental noi