An Alternative Writing Retreat
Picking up a copy of this single-sheet newsletter from a plastic folder sellotaped to a lamppost, in this tense atmosphere, felt like a risk. It was touch. It was connection, of a sort. But it was a risk we took, and it paid off well. As hyperlocal micropublications produced during a global pandemic go, The Usher is in a class of its own…
One summer, my father took us, Rob and I, to the Orkney Islands, to see the Viking burial sites, Pictish and Neolithic ruins, and to do some fishing. I was still in primary school – year five, I think. The first evening we arrived, we watched three locals unload their catch from a small motorboat onto the boggy shore of the lake we were staying on…
Turn off Seafield Road onto Marine Esplanade, past the sewage plant’s entrance, and you quickly come to the edge of the Firth of Forth. A wide expanse of water with the glittering lights of Kirkcaldy on the other side. There’s a grass walkway here, sandwiched between the treatment works’ chain fence and the sea wall, that leads down to the edge of what then becomes Portobello beach…
Set out on your government-approved once-daily walk. Go in the evening; fewer people present, less necessity for the awkward dance whereby you slip past one another on a narrow sidewalk, one of you spilling out into the road to keep that space, maintain that gap…
SJ Bradley participated in the Alton Towers Residency in April 2019. We spoke to her about the theme park, the Northern Short Story Festival, and writing both short things and long.
It’s a relatively little-known fact that London isn’t the only city in the UK to have its own underground railway system. Glasgow does too. We took a Londoner for a ride around the network and noted their perceptions…
This single, run-on, car crash sentence is posted prominently at least a dozen times. It appears on trees, on lamposts, bolted to walls. One copy of it, a little faded and rusty, is even tucked away amongst the bushes. It is clear that a great deal of time and energy has been expended in the crafting and installation of this sign. But what does it mean…
It might be the first thing you see as you arrive, or the last thing before you depart. You might not notice it at all. It lurks, semi-submerged, at the far end of the platforms, only its top half ever exposed, marking its own corner at Navigation and Brunel Streets: NEWSTREETSTATIONSIGNALBOX…
Most will be quick to dismiss Edinburgh’s Ocean Terminal as a mediocre shopping centre… but within its walls there are still phenomena worth observing. This guided walk examines some of the most prominent of them…
During its almost 30 years of operation the Camelot theme park in Lancashire had the slogan “The land of great knights, and amazing days.” Visitors could ride a selection of flat rides and rollercoasters, play games and buy snacks at battlemented stalls, and watch knights both great and not-so-great battle it out in the jousting arena…