REVIEW: ANDREA MBARUSHIMANA’S ‘THE AFRICA IN MY HOUSE’
THE AFRICA IN MY HOUSE BY ANDREA MBARUSHIMANA Silhouette Press ISBN: 978-0993431524 £6.00/53 pages Reviewed by: Stella Backhouse A few lines into ‘Hyena’, the opening narrative of Andrea Mbarushimana’s short prose and poetry collection The Africa in my House, the unnamed narrator casually observes that “the buses are not […]
Three Benefits of Pre-ordering The Rituals Issue
Start your new year with some quality literature. Benefit Number 1: Free goodies included in the parcel If you’re one to get excited with little goodies included within a shipping, especially for books, this is your chance to get one. HCE strives to give our readers quality material to read along with the magazine, such as the occasional […]
REVIEW: ROY MCFARLANE’S ‘BEGINNING WITH YOUR LAST BREATH’
Reviewed by Stella Backhouse | ‘Home’ should ideally be the definition of ‘security’; but in Beginning With Your Last Breath, Roy McFarlane’s deeply affecting debut collection, the poet navigates the complexities of creating identity amidst a double-dose of unease. Firstly, growing up black in a […]
RITUALS FICTION: ‘FOOD FOR THOUGHT’ BY JOSEPHINE ALLEN
She looked at the four deep gashes. All it needed was a diagonal slice across and it would make a four-bar gate of a tally. It made her wonder who first began to count that way. […]
RITUALS POETRY: ‘ALL SOULS’ BY RACHEL BURNS
All SoulsRachel Burns Collecting leaves for the compost heap, and flat-capped mushrooms on your knees in the wet grass. Stripping elderberries from branches at the roadside to make red ruby wine that will bubble in tall plastic vats in the airing cupboard....
RITUALS FICTION: ‘THE RITE OF ODOBENA’ BY ADAM MARKS
The Rite of OdobenaAdam Marks It was a dark, cloudy night: perfect! A group was gathered in a corner of Old St Pancras Churchyard. They were not a regular congregation. They were men and women of various ages, pepper-pot faces, ordinarily dressed, mostly;...
RITUALS FICTION: ‘WATCHING THE SATANISTS’ BY GERARD MCKEOWN
Watching The SatanistsGerard McKeown ‘We bought that goat with our own money and can sacrifice it to our Lord Satan if we feel like it.’Her screams land over the roof as I press the ignition. Something has died, or will die – a goat? Air clears through the...
RITUALS POETRY – ‘DECO DECORUM’ BY JANINA AZA KARPINSKA
Deco DecorumJanina Aza Karpinska As a young man he developed a taste forart deco artefacts – attracted by theirgeometric designs; curvaceous furniture,and dressers that displayed, to good effect,cups and saucers, and bric-a-brac, collecting as much as he...
RITUALS FICTION: ‘SEEING YELLOW’ BY MARY ROSE MCCARTHY
Seeing YellowMary Rose McCarthy At forty, Alison had come to detest the colour yellow. And she saw it everywhere. She wasn’t the navel gazing type, but if she thought at all about her problem with yellow, she figured it could have something to do with an...
RITUALS ARTWORK: ‘ZOLA PHOTOS’ BY JIM ZOLA
ZOLA PHOTOSJIM ZOLA JIM ZOLA is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina.