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New Writing Anthology - Literature Matters - Creative reading - Publications and resources - Literature - British Council - Arts

Editors of , Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers, have a retrospective muse on the selection process, the notion of post-post-colonial writing, the politics and trade-offs involved in editing, and literary envy.

Meanwhile Toby Litt, one of the editors of , considers the complexities of the editorial process.

by Sasha Dugdale

by Patience Agbabi

by Alan Jenkins

Catriona Ferguson, ' canny editor, serves up a generous helping of fresh fiction titles.

He was my first love.

Why else would I cycle, every Saturday,

to the museum in the park?

It wasn't the working model

of a coal mine; or specimen jars

of seasonal wild flowers;

Or the families of striped snails

and black and white plaster mice

demonstrating the Laws of Mendel.

I headed straight past the jigsaw-

coated giraffe (its head peering over

the balcony) to a case

stuck away in a gloomy corner;

but not so dark I couldn't see

the glossy pouch of his penis and balls.

He was posed against a backdrop of jungle,

one arm grasping a vine,

standing on two legs like a man.

The boys at the dancing class

(I always got the spotty or fat ones)

gripped me with clammy paws.

His hands were like padded gloves  

stitched from smooth black leather.

He could swing me off the floor.

I looked up at his lolling tongue;

at his jaw of ferocious teeth.

I gazed into his yellow eyes:

And he gazed back, as if to say,

if you loved me enough

you could bring me back to life.

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