It’s rainy season in Jakarta with 78 percent humidity, according to the weather forecasts, but you always wake up dehydrated. Bunda says it’s because you eat too much MSG. Or, more precisely, you keep ordering food from restaurants that clearly use MSG and other artificial flavoring. She tries to teach you how to cook tempe… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Fiction
Category: Editor’s Picks
The Editor’s Picks section will showcase and review some of the best extracts from the works published in our back issues of the magazine.
Winter 2024 – Drama
ANNA Well. I mean … “friends” is a strong word. REFLECTION A temporary truce? ANNA Maybe. They smile at each other. REFLECTION Go get ‘em, Anna. ANNA Right back at ya! Being an actor is a funny thing. Dressing up, playing make believe, small rituals, doing warmups and exercises that may look strange to outsiders.… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Drama
Winter 2024 – Art
‘To The Island’ – Christopher Woods ‘To The Island’ reveals a melancholy, black and white snapshot of passengers traveling to an island by watercraft. The first word that appeared in my mind’s eye, when I saw this photograph, was loneliness. Also, when we think of island, many connect the word to isolation. In this interpretation,… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Art
Winter 2024 – Nonfiction
In Crash Test Dummy, Rose Mason delivers the universal anxiety of driving and thrusts with a tone so frank and forthright that the emotional dreamscape of subconsciousness and the clinical morbidity of facts merge together, inviting the reader along the inner-most routes of the narrators mind only to confront them with critical questions about male-oriented road safety that leaves the female driver and passenger inherently in danger.
Winter 2024 – Poetry
The Aldgate Horses – LJ Ireton Now cool in the fountain – A memory of earth water; Squelching feet in fields With cleaner conscience, Louder heartbeats. The speaker conveys admiration for one of the bronze horse statues in London. A memory of earth water, under stone readings of oxygen. These are highlights of some of… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Poetry
Winter 2024 – Fiction
It’s rainy season in Jakarta with 78 percent humidity, according to the weather forecasts, but you always wake up dehydrated. Bunda says it’s because you eat too much MSG. Or, more precisely, you keep ordering food from restaurants that clearly use MSG and other artificial flavoring. She tries to teach you how to cook tempe… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Fiction
Spring 2023 – Drama
‘The Nightmare Began When I Woke Up’ EVELYN: I guess we should start?EDITH: I guess so.EVELYN: My name is Princess Evelyn, and I was recently awoken from a sleepingcurse.EDITH: My name is Princess Edith, and I was recently awoken from a sleeping curse. By Kaylon Willoughby A fairytale retelling in a princess support group.Snow White… Continue reading Spring 2023 – Drama
Spring 2023 – Nonfiction
Saltwater, or how witchcraft led me to address my guilt and grief by Madeleine Brown Saltwater, or how witchcraft led me to address my guilt and grief is an excellent piece of creative nonfiction which we are very proud to have published in the Spring 2023 Issue of Spellbinder. Overall, Saltwater is a beautifully written… Continue reading Spring 2023 – Nonfiction
Spring 2023 – Poetry
‘Summer Solstice, 4:53am’ by Danielle Gilmour ‘I move so slowly through the acresthat my legs are dewy.The waters of the estuary are coming –or going – I’m unsure which butwhichever they are they don’t need to ask’ Danielle Gilmour’s poem ‘Summer Solstice, 4:53am’ is about giving birth. This subject matter is explored with a beautiful… Continue reading Spring 2023 – Poetry
Spring 2023 – Fiction
From time to time, a man would walk down O’Connell Street with a troupe of dancing bears. Now, this was not, in itself, unusual. A great deal is packed into those two opening sentences of Quigley Cryan Brockbank’s The Dancing Bears of O’Connell Street, and they do what every good short story opening should do.… Continue reading Spring 2023 – Fiction