Editors’ Note

Although we are stubbornly remaining in t-shirt and shorts as long as we can, the end of August/start of September has undoubtedly brought a welcome cooling of the weather. As always, the changing of the seasons brings a certain introspection over the past few months: we had a great time as we always do at the City of Literature Publishing Fair here in Norwich — it was great to meet so many of you in person! We also met a fair few readers and students at Andrew’s book launches in Norwich and London too.

We’re currently also hard at work on our next issue; our submitters have made our jobs as difficult as always, as we’ve been sent some fantastic pieces to choose from. And if you haven’t checked out the current issue — our ‘nurture’ special — you can order it here or from your local bookshop (just give them the ISBN 978-1-0666406-0-7).

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Editorial Recommendations

At the start of the summer, our editorial team recommended their various summer reading picks. Find out what made them pack Siri Hustvedt’s Ghost Stories, Jane Rogoyska’s Hotel Exile, Cal Flynn’s The Savage Landscape and Jon Ronson's The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men (and more!) in their holiday hand luggage here and here.

September/October Course Dates

We’re just passed the one-year anniversary of launching our own creative non-fiction courses. After starting with a single taster day last summer, we’ve since grown our programme to include two separate six-week classes (Building Skills in Creative Non-fiction and Advanced Skills in Creative Non-fiction), both of which return this autumn (spaces still available!). We’ve also ran two iterations of our monthly Creative Non-fiction Writers’ Workshop, which started as just a hunch that there might be interest but has really taken off — the third one starts next month and has already sold out! Finally, the first authors to join our mentorship programme are already working on their own non-fiction projects too, under the encouraging guidance of editor Andrew — we can’t wait to see them come to fruition.

Author Interviews

We chatted to nine of our authors from Issue 18 — read our quick-fire interviews with Sabrin Hasbun, Kirsty Loehr, Meghan Flaherty, Oyéshiku Carr, Elaine Lambie, Stan J Wild, Grace Halden, Feline Charpentier and — phew! — Molly Gunzinger Janz on our Substack, as they discuss their current obsessions, what they’re writing now and the story behind their pieces in Hinterland.

Miscellany

Our editor-in-chief Andrew released his first full-length work of non-fiction, Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King. You can read our interview with him about it here.

Work is also under way on Hinterland Issue 19 — we’re just finishing up longlisting submissions, before the really hard job of shortlisting begins. Expect to find out more in the coming month or two.

Just a quick update to remind you that there’s just a few days left of the Hinterland Summer Sale — we’re currently offering 20% off all of our individual issues (print and digital formats) from our webstore, including the latest issue — some of our back issues are reduced even more!

Just enter the code SUMMER20 at checkout, between now and the end of Monday 31st August.

Although our Writers’ Workshop has now sold out, we do still have spaces on both of our online non-fiction courses this autumn: Building Skills (weekly for six weeks from 17th Sept) and Advanced Skills courses (weekly for six weeks from 29th Oct).

You can book direct with us, and if you do you’ll receive a free digital issue of your choice.

I recently heard September described as a ‘second new year’, because for many of us still used to the academic year it feels like a reset; a return to routing, an opportunity to restate goals and restart projects perhaps left alone over the summer. September is just around the corner and with it the restart of our online creative non-fiction programme: our six-week courses Building Skills in Creative Non-fiction and Advanced Skills in Creative Non-fiction, and our monthly Creative Non-fiction Writers’ Workshop.

Even better, if you book directly with us, you’ll also receive a free digital issue of your choice.

Building Skills in Creative Non-Fiction (tickets £180, one bursary place still available) runs online on Thursday evenings from 17th September with a focused six-week course. It’s aimed at both writers looking to take their first steps in the genre as well as non-fiction writers who want to develop their craft a little more. We’ll read some of the best texts in the genre together, practice our craft, and share extracts from our ongoing projects for feedback and support from the rest of the group.

Advanced Skills in Creative Non-fiction (tickets £180, two bursary places available) is our newest six-week course, running online on Thursday evenings from 29th October. It’s aimed at writers who are already writing non-fiction but want to add depth to their craft or experiment with new forms within the genre. Over the course of the six weeks we’ll look at extracts from the latest non-fiction texts, explore different aspects of the craft in depth as well as have the chance to workshop our own writing.

Finally we also have just a couple of spaces left on our Creative Non-fiction Writers’ Workshop (tickets £300, Wednesday evenings, monthly from 9th September). It’s aimed at writers with non-fiction work in progress, and in each of the six monthly session we’ll take it in turns to share substantial extracts from our writing for feedback and advice from our peers.

The summer’s not quite over yet, of course, which means you can still take advantage of the Hinterland Summer Sale — 20% off all of our individual issues (print or digital formats) from our webstore, just use the code SUMMER20 between now and the end of August.

One of the things I’ve come to cherish in my own writing life is regular feedback from my writing group, that group of friends with whom I’ve been sharing my writing with for nearly ten years now. Every month when I hit send on the email with a new piece of writing attached I get that same tingly feeling, a mix of excitement and anticipation to see what they make of it. I’m not fishing for compliments; I’m looking for criticism that helps me develop my writing. And I love reading their works in progress just as much, watching as their stories develop over the months from the first sketch of an idea to a fully finished story.

There’s something about reading and discussing other writers’ work, sharing rough drafts and half-plotted outlines, that makes us better writers ourselves. And that’s the idea behind Hinterland’s Creative Non-fiction Writers’ Workshop, a monthly, online gathering where writers commit to reading and responding to one another’s work.

Over six months (starting 9th September and running monthly, 6.30-9.30pm GMT, online) we’ll come together to closely read and discuss works in progress, and feed it back into our own writing. This workshop features:

• Small group size (capped at six) so that every voice is heard, led by me, an experienced workshop facilitator and non-fiction tutor.

• Three submission points each — thoughtful, detailed feedback on up to 5000 words, three times over the six months.

• Focus on craft over editing, with real attention to voice, structure, pacing and narrative. Everything you’ve come to expect from Hinterland.

This is the space where your unfinished, uncertain, evolving work gets serious attention from other writers who take non-fiction as seriously as you do.

Why workshop?

When we read our own work in isolation, it’s easy to miss what’s working — and what’s not. But in a workshop grounded in generosity and craft:

• You learn to read like a writer — not just to receive comments, but to understand what they mean for the choices you make in your own work.

• You begin to notice your blind spots — in rhythm, perspective, narrative arc or assumed knowledge.

• You build confidence in shaping your work — and confidence is half the craft.

Workshopping isn’t about finding ‘the answer’ in someone else’s head; it’s about sharpening your own questions, and using feedback to keep yourself on track.

What writers leave with

Participants in past workshops I’ve run often describe leaving with:

• A clearer sense of what their project is.

• Better tools for writing structure, scene and narrative drive.

• A writing practice that feels like they’re able to make progress.

• Real sense of community — the kind that is sustained long after the course ends.

If you want to shift from writing alone to writing in conversation with your peers, then this workshop is for you. You can sign up now — spaces are intentionally limited to keep the conversation focused within the group.

I’m looking forward to reading what you’re writing — and writing alongside you!

— Andrew

News Round-up

• Whilst on the subject of Andrew, his debut biography, Rex Juba, is out now! It’s already got a great couple of reviews too, including this one in Literary Review magazine.

• We’ve got two new dates for our online courses starting in September and October too — our popular Building Skills and Advanced Skills courses are running again in the autumn. We’re also planning some brand-new classes too, so keep an eye out for more information on those soon!

Andrew Kenrick is the founding editor of Hinterland. He is an author, historian, editor and lecturer in creative non-fiction. Andrew holds a PhD in Life Writing from the University of East Anglia and teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Cambridge and CityLit in London. His first full-length work of non-fiction, Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King, is out tomorrow from Penguin. His essay, ‘On Meat’ appeared in Hinterland Issue 8.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

I seem to have been writing — or, at the very least, taking notes for — the same thing for months now, which is a chapter on ancient nature writing for Bloomsbury’s Cultural History of Biography series. I’m finally at the stage where I can see the shape it’s going to take now.

I’ve also been writing a fun little series of blog posts for my website and Instagram about the favourite bits of my new book, which have been a nice change of pace.

Finally, me, Yin and Freya wrote a deep dive over the weekend on what we’re looking for as Hinterland editors, over at Janelle Drumwright’s excellent Lit Mag Lounge. You can read that here.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

I’ve always got a cheery read on the go at this time of year and today it’s Anne Jacobsen’s Biological War: A Scenario, which I just know is going to give me some sleepless nights. It’s the sequel to 2024’s chilling Nuclear War: A Scenario, which I absolutely devoured. I’m intrigued by the concept of ‘speculative non-fiction’ and am pondering ways to apply it in my own writing.

I’m also obsessed with Muse’s new album, The Wow! Signal. I’ve loved Muse since their very first album and this one feels like a classic. Who doesn’t love a pipe organ solo midway through a rock track?

Words to live by…

As my students will tell you, my motto is ‘write to find out.’ You don’t always know what a book is going to be about when you start, you don’t always know what shape it’s going to take, you don’t even know what questions it’s trying to answer, and you can sit there and plan all you like but sometimes you’ve got to write it to find out the answers.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

I used to be editor of White Dwarf magazine, which will mean more or less to you depending on if you were a teenage boy in the UK in the eighties or nineties. Let’s just say it’s an icon of the British games scene for which many of us have a fair amount of nostalgia, and it remains one of my proudest achievements to have helmed it for a couple of years.

Can you tell us about your latest book?

Rex Juba is a work of narrative history and biography, about the first-century North African king Juba II of Mauretania, who lived the most extraordinary life and was witness to some of history’s most significant moments, and yet has largely been consigned to the margins. Juba was orphaned by Julius Caesar and paraded through Rome in a triumph, but instead of being enslaved or killed he was spared and ended up being raised in the Roman imperial household. He marries the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra Selene, and the two of them end up ruling the North African kingdom of Mauretania — quite successfully, all told. I tell the story through fifteen objects associated with the pair and their reign. I hope people become as fascinated by Juba and Selene as I am — their story deserves to be more widely known.

Andrew’s new book, Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King, is out tomorrow from Penguin/Torva.

And if you’re looking to hear more from Andrew, he’s once again leading our online non-fiction courses in the autumn: Building Skills (weekly for six weeks from 17th Sept) and Advanced Skills courses (weekly for six weeks from 29th Oct), and a new date for our Writers’ Workshop class for works in progress starting at the beginning of September. You can book direct with us, and if you do you’ll receive a free digital issue of your choice.

Originally from Canada, Molly Gunzinger Janz has found forms of home in Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. She is raising a daughter and working on her first book. Her piece ‘Canticle’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

I am working on a book about my mother, the writer Patricia Van Tighem, who died in 2005. Most recently, I’ve been writing a related essay experimenting with interweaving my own writing with excerpts from the work she left behind — journals, short stories, drafts of her own first book.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

Arthur Kleinman’s The Illness Narratives. As I read the first chapters, in particular, I had that rare and wonderful feeling of having my conceptual framework bodily rearranged, and expanded.

Words to live by…

I find myself thinking a great deal at the moment of many things Ursula Le Guin has written, not least this:

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

I lift weights — have for ten years now! I don’t know whether this surprises others, but it certainly surprises me.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

Without giving away too much, this piece is my attempt to begin to understand what happened during my first pregnancy — how something I had feared for years, almost my whole life, became transformative and even healing perhaps because of the way I was accompanied through the experience by others, and by my own commitment to myself.

Hinterland Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition. Dates for our latest non-fiction courses are up on the website too.

Feline was born in Germany, grew up in north Wales and now lives in south Devon with her partner and three children. She is a parent-carer for her youngest son, who has cystic fibrosis. She teaches German for A-Level and creative writing for young people, and is founder and editor of ifwisheswerehorses.org, a literary arts journal. Feline has been published in Broth Zine and Apricot Press, was shortlisted for the inaugural Curae Prize in 2023, and is a contributor to Moving Mountains (Footnote), an anthology of nature writing by chronically ill and disabled writers. She writes reviews for New Books in German, an organisation promoting German language books for translation into English, supported by the Goethe Institut in London. Feline is currently studying for a part-time MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster, where she is working on the edits of a book-length essay. Find her on Instagram and Bluesky. Her piece ‘Bees of the Invisible’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

I am working on a book-length essay for my MA on the same theme as this piece, and it’s a hybrid mixture of fiction, essay and memoir. I am chipping away at it by writing down little snippets of thoughts, readings, ideas, and sort of threading them together as I go. The last thing I wrote was a quote by the philosopher Mark Rowlands about how remembering is an act of imagination, and imagining an act of remembering.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

I just very impulsively pre-ordered the mirror mask made by the artist and designer Freddie Yauner. I’ll probably wear it to a party, or maybe just on the school run, to really cement my reputation in the playground. He’s also fascinating in general, as for the past six years he’s spent three months of each year living as William Morris.

I’m also obsessed with Orlando Seale’s work, he’s the first exhibiting artist for the literary arts journal I founded last year. His painting is just so beautiful, and the written responses we’ve received translating his work have been so varied and impressive.

Words to live by…

I have no idea where this originates, it’s attributed to Flannery O’Connor, but might be older than that: “I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say”, my version of which might be more like “I don’t know what I feel until I’ve seen what I’ve written about it.”

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

It will surprise no one who knows me that I have done many jobs in my life. I came to writing late, having tried almost everything else. I’ve been a timber framer, a flooding surveyor, run a bakery and a pizza catering business, taught butchery, blacksmithing and woodland management. For a long time I confused the urge to make with not having anything to say. Now writing for me is the craft, the thing I ‘make’ with my hands, which tries to get at something deeper, the things I struggle to express in person.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

This piece is about a weekend in Hamburg with my father and my uncle and his family. It’s also about how we hold at arm’s length the things we are afraid of, darkness and loss and the unknown, and how by doing so we let the really terrifying things sneak up on us when we’re not looking. It’s about care, and wild swimming and war and dementia and rewilding and trauma and German cake, and all the things in between. My dad died last June, so publishing this very personal piece has a lot of additional meaning for me now.

There’s a line in Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge that goes like this: “I’m learning how to see. I don’t know what the reason is, but everything enters into me more deeply and no longer stops at the point where it used to come to an end. I have an inner self I knew nothing about. Now everything goes into it. I don’t know what happens there.”

I think it’s clear I’m a little obsessed with Rilke, and this piece is deeply inspired by his writings and his particular way of expressing his Germanness, the way he writes around the gaps (what he calls the form, allowing the reader to fill in the shape his form is making in their own mind) and his deep and wonky way of thinking about the modern world and our place within it.

Hinterland Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition. Dates for our latest non-fiction courses are up on the website too.

Grace Halden is an academic whose writing centres on memoir-inspired explorations of assisted reproduction. Her latest book, Cyborg Conception, blends personal narrative with research into solo motherhood by choice. She is a Reader in Medical Humanities and Contemporary Literature, specialising in reproductive health, reproductive technologies, donor conception, and bioethics in literature and culture. Her interdisciplinary work sits at the intersection of literary studies, creative non-fiction, and medical humanities. Halden is programme director for the MA in Medical Humanities and co-director of the Centre of Medical and Health Humanities at Birkbeck. Her flash non-fiction piece ‘I think he has killed his wife’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

I am currently writing a book about the complexity of clock time and the experience of duration as a mother with children in neonatal intensive care.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

I’m currently obsessed with playing the game Overcooked. I don’t bother cooking in real life but will spend hours preparing digital sushi.

Words to live by…

If Plan A fails, there are 25 more letters. Adapt.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

Every time I’ve written a book, I’ve dug a pond. Digging somehow helps me think! I have three ponds and a river in my garden… and four books completed!

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

This was a story I used to tell friends for laughs: the time I convinced myself that the man living opposite me had killed his wife. What am I like? Hilarious. But when I sold my chair and remembered that I had once tried to clean it at 3am with shaving foam, I realised I likely had postpartum anxiety at the time. The more I wrote, the more I understood that it wasn’t funny after all. In fact, it was deeply sad.

Hinterland Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition. Dates for our latest non-fiction courses are up on the website too.

Stan J Wild is a new British writer. He has appeared or is forthcoming in Vestal Review, Neon & Smoke, Wallstrait and others. He has two young sons and works in the NGO sector. His piece ‘Through All the Black Holes’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

‘Bleeding Seamonster’ in Vestal Review, and a longer edit, which was recently published in Neon and Smoke’s first anthology. My story ‘Heifer, Milk & Mango’ will be coming out in Wallstrait in August — it’s about an NGO compound in Haiti, which suffers the fate of meddling too much with local custom and commerce.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

Denis Johnson’s short story collection Jesus’ Son. It’s from 1992 so I’ve been slow off the mark! Twin Peaks and Disintegration (by The Cure) are long-standing fixations with that time too.

Words to live by…

Legendary basketball player Michael Jordan on failure is always reassuring:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

That I write! I’ve always been odd and private about it and hide behind a pen name, so only a handful of folk know.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

It’s inspired by my two sons, partner and mum, and with a lot of gratitude to the NHS. It’s about my youngest son’s battle with cancer. I like to think it’s about hope.

Hinterland Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition.

Freya Dean

I’ve just torn through two fiction reads: a collection of short stories, Wednesday’s Child, by Yiyun Li, that may or may not have elements of autobiography woven through it. The writing is sparse and beautiful and the collection as a whole is unified by themes of grief and loneliness; but like so much great writing it manages to illuminate a way through these. At giddy pace I’ve also just read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, which has divided everyone I know who’s read it. I loved it. Almost plotless, the novel is driven by the strength of the narrative voice, which is hateful and funny by turns. I’m now back to a dose of non-fiction with Siri Hustvedt’s Ghost Stories, a patchwork memoir of her husband’s death and the portrait of a marriage, which I snapped up in hardback, hungry for anything by Hustvedt. Some 90 pages in, I am not disappointed!

Freya Dean is of Dutch-British descent; one of the founders of Hinterland, she combines writing and editorial work with a career in teaching English, currently at a state-funded secondary school in Cambridgeshire. Her poetry and non-fiction has featured in Visual Verse, The Real Story, Hinterland and UEA’s Anthology series. She has been the recipient of UEA’s Lorna Sage Award and an Elizabeth Kostova Foundation finalist.

Andrew Kenrick

As long-time readers of this newsletter will know, I tend to favour unseasonal reads: tales of tragedy while sitting on the beach, accounts of ancient disasters while on a city break, that sort of thing. Much like Susan (see part 1, last week), I’ve just finished Patrick Radden Keefe’s gripping piece of reportage, London Falling. Next up is the marginally more hopeful Hotel Exile, Jane Rogoyska’s biography of the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, which was recently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction. The hotel served as the unofficial headquarters of the German government in exile after Hitler’s rise to power, then as the base of operations for Nazi intelligence during the occupation and finally as a sanctuary for survivors returning from the concentration camps after the war’s end.

Andrew Kenrick is the founder and editor-in-chief of Hinterland. His interdisciplinary studies have taken him from ancient history and archaeology to the movie Gladiator and Roman cooking, as well as researching new methods for writing ancient biography. His own debut, the ancient biography Rex Juba, is out next month from Penguin/Torva.

Margaret Hedderman

I picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance after finishing a short ‘human-powered’ bicycle trip and was keen to keep the journey alive. This philosophical novel recounts a father and son’s cross-country motorcycle trip while delivering a series of ‘Chautauquas’ — or meditations — on modern life and values. In particular, the narrator often explores our relationship to technology. Published in 1974, the novel is a particularly thought-provoking read in 2026 with the rise of AI.

Margaret Hedderman is an American writer based in France. She holds an MA in Biography & Creative Non-fiction from the University of East Anglia and is also a Film Independent Screenwriting Lab Fellow. Her work has been published in BBC Travel, Sierra Magazine and Hinterland. She is currently working on a novel.

And if after all that you’re looking for even more summer reading, the latest issue of Hinterland is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition.

If you’re thinking slightly further ahead, we’ve also posted the dates for our next run of online non-fiction courses for September and October: Building Skills (weekly for six weeks from 17th Sept) and Advanced Skills courses (weekly for six weeks from 29th Oct), and a new date for our Writers’ Workshop class for works in progress starting at the beginning of September. You can book direct with us, and if you do you’ll receive a free digital issue of your choice.

Iona Macduff

Cal Flyn’s last book, The Islands of Abandonment, was a startling journey around thirteen locations where human structures have been reclaimed by nature. The Savage Landscape is a similarly wide geographic and temporal grappling, this time with the concept of wilderness, and the damage it might have done. I can’t wait to read it — for the places she encounters, but also for Cal’s own thoughts and deep research, which make the reading journey so rich and generative.

Iona Macduff is a Scottish writer living between Norwich, Scotland and Kathmandu. Her current book project, on refuge in the climate crisis, has her writing places from a Scottish island to a Himalayan valley. She is currently a Critical Decade for Climate Change Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar at the University of East Anglia. Her work has been published in Himal Southasian and The Kathmandu Post, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Future Places Environmental Essay Prize.

Susan K Burton

I'm too fair-skinned to sunbathe, so this summer I'll be inside with the curtains drawn and a pile of hard hitting journalism. I never thought I could have any interest in the American pharmaceutical industry until I read Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. It's a true crime read about a family's complicity in the American drug addiction crisis. I've just started his latest, London Falling about a 19-year-old who ended up dead at the bottom of a luxury high rise and the criminal underworld who may have put him there. On a lighter note (I hope), Jon Ronson's The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men, is out in August. And then Malcolm Gladwell's The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, an investigation into gun violence and its aftermath, will hit the bookshops in September. Addiction, murder, the masculinity crisis, and gun violence — that's my summer sewn up.

Susan Karen Burton is an oral historian with doctorates in history from the University of Sussex and in creative and critical writing from the University of East Anglia. She worked for over a decade in Japan and records the lives of British migrants there. Her writing appears in issues one and six of Hinterland, and her latest book, The Transplantable Roots of Catharine Huws Nagashima: Encounters with the Welsh in Japan, a polyphonic group portrait based on oral history techniques, is out now from Parthian Books.

Yin F Lim

A book I’ve been very much looking forward to reading is Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War [also recommended by Susan in her article about oral histories, last year]. A journalist, Alexievich is well known (and even won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature) for crafting narratives of significant events from witness testimonies and oral histories. She spent years interviewing Soviet women on their World War II experiences for this book. I’m really keen to see how she captures what she calls a ‘women’s history’ of war with ‘its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings’ through a chorus of voices so often missing from official narratives.

Yin F Lim spent many years as a journalist writing other people’s stories before deciding to write her own. She holds a Biography and Creative Non-Fiction MA from the University of East Anglia, and is currently working on The Ties that Bind, a family memoir about her maternal grandmother’s emigration from South China to Malaya in the early twentieth century. She is the winner of the 2025 Mo Siewcharran Prize. Her article, ‘Tourist in my Homeland’, appears in Hinterland Issue 2.

Ned Harding

I’ve just started on Memoirs from Beyond the Grave by François-René de Chateaubriand. It’s a huge book that’s currently being translated and published by the NYRB in four volumes (3/4 out so far). Chateaubriand was a member of the French aristocracy during the time of the revolution, fled to America, travelled around Europe, eventually returned to France, held office in government, got sacked and he survived all the way up to and beyond the reign of Napoleon. His memoirs apparently stretch the truth quite a bit (he claims to have called on George Washington when the man was sick, for example), so maybe not the best representation of good non-fiction practice, but it’s been hugely influential for a lot of writers: Proust, Sebald, Barthes etc.

Ned Harding is a proofreader at Hinterland and is currently writing his dissertation for his MA in Creative Non-fiction at UEA. He writes about the things he notices that remind him of the human element in a world increasingly run by inhuman forces. He is a serial pen-chewer.

Elaine teaches creative writing in a women’s prison, as a volunteer. Formerly, she taught English and Philosophy & Ethics in secondary schools. She has been a writer since the age of nine. ‘This Be The Verse’ (which appears Hinterland Issue 18) is part of a collection she is currently writing based on lived-experience of truth. She lives in West Sussex.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

You will find this unbelievably eclectic (!) but this is what I had jotted down on a Post-it note while talking to my sister-in-law just before getting your email:

Nuryev’s butler

1.30pm anal glands

Mary Trump

Berkeley Square

Last chapter missing

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

You’ve Been So Lucky Already – a memoir – by Alethea Black.

Words to live by…

Apathy is not an option.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

That I volunteer in a prison.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

‘This Be The Verse’ is my husband’s story. His disjointed, traumatic childhood has impacted his whole life. The title is, of course, from Philip Larkin’s poem which resonated with me: that Steven’s trauma is a product of his mother’s upbringing and the subsequent skewed choices she made.

Thanks Elaine! Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition.

In other news, we’ve posted the dates for our next run of online non-fiction courses for the autumn, in case you want to plan ahead: Building Skills (weekly for six weeks from 17th Sept) and Advanced Skills courses (weekly for six weeks from 29th Oct), and a new date for our Writers’ Workshop class for works in progress starting at the beginning of September. You can book direct with us, and if you do you’ll receive a free digital issue of your choice.

Oyéshiku Carr is an American writer of Liberian descent who was raised in Europe and Africa before moving to the United States. He is currently earning an MFA at the City College of New York and holds a PhD in African Politics from Boston University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and an MLK Fellow. His essays and fiction have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Dogwood (shortlisted for the Dogwood Literary Award), Promethean, and The Research Handbook on Nationalism. His debut novel, Sette, was shortlisted for the 2025 Eyelands Book Award (unpublished manuscript category). He lives in New York City. His story ‘Map of Understanding’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

Emails for work.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End. The best novel I have read in years!

Words to live by…

I never lose. I win or I learn — Nelson Mandela

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

My age.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

‘Map of Understanding’ is inspired by my memories of growing up in Kenya and the United States.

Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition.

In other news, we’ve posted the dates for our next run of online non-fiction courses for the autumn, in case you want to plan ahead: Building Skills (weekly for six weeks from 17th Sept) and Advanced Skills courses (weekly for six weeks from 29th Oct), and a new date for our Writers’ Workshop class for works in progress starting at the beginning of September. You can book direct with us, and if you do you’ll receive a free digital issue of your choice.

Meghan Flaherty is the author of Tango Lessons and is a Scottish Book Trust Ignite Fellow. Her essays have appeared in VQR, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Iowa Review, Psychology Today, Parents, and online at the New York Times, The Paris Review, Slate, and elsewhere; ‘Ode to Gray’ and ‘On Not Becoming an Ecosexual: The Question of Animism’ were notable mentions in 2019’s Best American Essays and 2024’s Best American Science & Nature Writing. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. She is working on a novel about perimenopause and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Meghan’s story ‘Taps’ appears in Hinterland Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

An essay about Dungeons & Dragons as a parenting strategy.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

The essays and poems of Billy-Ray Belcourt (and/or Ben&Jerry’s “Netflix & Chill’d”).

Words to live by…

‘At least that rat bastard Nixon is still dead’ (my late dad)

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

Huge feet.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

I wrote this piece eight years ago, after the birth of my first kid. I wanted to write something for anyone out there, like me, who wanted to follow the very well-intentioned imperatives to breastfeed with all their heart, but who simply, physically could not, through no fault of their own. It’s hard enough to be a parent without the crippling guilt that your birth, your breasts, your biology could be irreparably wrong. Sometimes things are complicated. Often, things go wrong. Perfection in parenting is an illusion. Almost always, it is not your fault. If one milk-maddened mother reads this and feels less alone, it will be a win.

Issue 18 is available to order direct from our webstore now, as both a print and digital edition.

On Sunday we attended the City of Literature Publishing Fair, always one of the highlights of our publishing year. We spent a wonderful — if warm — day chatting to many new customers about what exactly is creative non-fiction, how to write real life and some of our favourite issues.

The fair saw the launch of our latest issue, which had arrived from the printers just a couple of days before. Issue 18 is on the subject of ‘nurture’ and features some fantastic writing on that topic — from Kirsty Loehr on queer parenting, Sabrin Hasbun discussing the story of her parents, Stan J Wild writing about caring for a desperately ill infant, and Meghan Flaherty about breastfeeding (and many more great pieces besides). We also got to meet one of the authors, Elaine Lambie, whose piece ‘This be the Verse’ is all about untangling her husband’s complex childhood.

The Publishing Fair was far from the only thing going on over the weekend. We managed to catch some of the other events from the City of Literature Weekend on Saturday too.

It was a full house at the Spiegeltent, where author and palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke delivered this year’s Harriet Martineau lecture. Known for her non-fiction bestsellers including the award-winning The Story of a Heart, Clarke spoke about the current crisis of care in the NHS and how to find hope and take action in an age of carelessness.

At Dragon Hall in the afternoon, writer and political thinker Ece Temelkuran discussed the themes around her latest book Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, particularly the idea of feeling unhomed — morally, politically and spiritually — in an increasingly uncertain world, and the importance of having faith in humanity.

And rounding off the day was Jarred McGinnis in a conversation about playing with form and misbehaving with non-fiction yet keeping family stories sacred in the writing of his latest book There is No Meant to Be. It was only after picking up a copy that we discovered a mention of Hinterland in the acknowledgements section — always an honour! — a throwback to his essay that appeared in Issue 12 and which became the germ of his memoir.

We were delighted to take delivery earlier in the week of the latest issue of Hinterland. This issue is themed on the subject of ‘nurture’, featuring a headline piece by Kirsty Loehr about queer parenthood, a fantastic interview with Sabrin Hasbun, as well as a selection of great writing about nurture and caring in all its many forms.

After a busy day yesterday packing pre-orders and subscriptions, those are now all winging their way through the post already. If didn’t get the chance to pre-order your own copy, you can buy it over at our webstore. Or, if you’re in Norwich this weekend…

Norwich City of Literature Publishing Fair (24 May, Dragon Hall, Norwich)

You will be able to pick up the latest issue — and browse all of our in-stock titles — at our stall at the City of Literature Publishing Fair tomorrow (10am to 4pm, Sunday 24 May 2026) at the National Centre for Writing, Norwich.

The City of Literature Publishing Fair is the perfect place to meet small-press publishers, browse and purchase their work, and also take part in a series of lightning talks throughout the day. There’s also a Writers’ Salon too, where authors can sell their work directly and offer advice to fellow writers. It’s the perfect Sunday event for writers, readers, editors and creators of all kinds!

Our editor-in-chief Andrew Kenrick and associate editor Yin F Lim will be on hand throughout the day to chat about the magazine, hold forth on their favourite issues and generally discuss the craft of non-fiction. If you’re in/near Norwich make sure you call in to say hello — admission is free, and it’s at Dragon Hall, 115–123 King Street, Norwich, NR1 1QE.

Kirsty Loehr is a writer and English teacher. She has a master's degree in transnational creative writing and loves women, football, history and comedy – but not necessarily in that order. She is the author of A Short History of Queer Women and A Short History of Queer Parenting. She lives in Brighton with her cat, her son, her girlfriend, her girlfriend's two cats and her girlfriend's two kids. Kirsty headlines Issue 18 with her piece, ‘From Section 28 to the School Gates’.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

I wrote a non-fiction piece on the loss of my cat and the relationship queer people have with their pets. You can find it here!

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

Kit Kats for breakfast.

Words to live by…

Nobody will ever be as talented as Emily Brontë.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

I have the musical taste of a sixty-five-year-old straight white man.

In a few words, what’s your piece in Hinterland about?

Being a queer parent can be a lonely place sometimes. I wanted to write something for other queer parents and to help normalise queer parenting because we are thriving.

Issue 18 is available to pre-order direct from our webstore now.

Also, some of the Hinterland team will be at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich this coming Sunday for the City of Literature Publishing Fair. If you’re in the area, come and say hi!

Sabrin Hasbun was born in Palestine, spent her childhood in Palestine and Italy, and now lives in the UK. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and History from Bath Spa University and Exeter University and lectures in creative writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University where she teaches and researches decolonial strategies through collective creation and action. Crossing, Sabrin’s family memoir about displacement told through the love shared between her Italian mother and Palestinian father, was awarded the Footnote x Counterpoints Writing Prize. She is in conversation with our associate editor Yin F Lim in Issue 18.

What’s the last thing (except for this!) that you wrote?

The last thing I wrote, just this morning as every morning, is my journal of practice. It keeps my hand going even when my mind is stuck or too busy. It reminds me that writing is a priority.

What’s a recent discovery that you can’t keep quiet about?

I am obsessing over The Land in our Bones by Layla K. Feghali.

Words to live by…

“We will need writers who can remember freedom” - Ursula K Le Guin.

Tell us something about yourself that surprises people...

I am an incredible cook. I love cooking and hosting people. I think there is nothing more powerful than coming together over a meal prepared with love and care. I have seen how my parents used food to melt the prejudices against their mixed marriage and it was a great lesson for me, plus I come from two fantastic culinary traditions (Palestinian and Italian) so I can't go wrong.

Can you tell us about your conversation with Hinterland?

I was lucky enough to meet [Hinterland associate editor] Yin during my book presentation at Norwich Book Festival. It was her idea to have a conversation about my book in this issue of Hinterland. The conversation focuses on what it meant for me to write the story of my parents, unfolding between Italy and Palestine, not only on the emotional level, but at the level of craft and language. When dealing with intergenerational pains and joys, and when writing in a moment of unspeakable violence, craft is not just about style but it becomes a conscious way to reshape the narrative, to rewrite oneself into the history that tries to erase us.

Issue 18 is available to pre-order direct from our website now.

Hinterland Issue 18 is available to preorder now direct from our webstore. The issue features a beautiful cover from Elaine Nason and some amazing stories inside, all themed around ‘nurture’. Here’s just a taste of what you can expect:

In ‘From Section 28 to the School Gates’ our headline author Kirsty Loehr (A Short History of Queer Women and A Short History of Queer Parenting) writes about her decision to become a parent.

Our second headliner, Sabrin Hasbun (Crossing) is interviewed by associate editor Yin F Lim, in a conversation that ranges from the challenges of writing different narrative voices and languages, as well as speculative non-fiction, to the importance of daily lives as testament of historical and political movements, and art as a channel of resistance against oppression.

Marguerite Bunce introduces us to her, quite frankly, terrifying mother on a roadtrip in Germany in her piece, ‘The ‘er’ in Nurture.’

In ‘Map of Understanding’, Oyéshiku Carr remembers an old map of Europe that hung on the wall of his childhood home, using it as a lens to write about family and friendship.

In ‘Bees of the Invisible’, Feline Charpentier spends a weekend with her elderly father in Hamburg, where she confronts not only his dementia but also unresolved stories from his past.

Meghan Flaherty attempts to follow the well-intentioned imperative to breastfeed her new baby in ‘Taps’, but is forced to grapple with the guilt that comes with being physically unable to.

In ‘Canticle’, Molly Gunzinger Janz shares the painful story of her first pregnancy, and how something she feared became transformative and healing.

Elaine Lambie tells the story of husband’s disjointed, traumatic childhood in ‘This Be the Verse’.

New author Stan J Wild writes tenderly about his infant son’s battle with cancer in ‘Through all the Black Holes’.

And, as always, we have a fine selection of flash non-fiction, this issue from Grace Halden, Christie Jones and Ceri Morgan, writing pieces that are by turns funny, tragic, wistful and moving.

We’ll have interviews with many of our contributors over the coming weeks. If we’ve successfully whetted your appetite, you can preorder Issue 18 now.

Andrew Kenrick in Conversation with Lucie Gray and Eleanor Bruce

Last Tuesday, our editor-in-chief Andrew was in conversation with Lucilla Gray and Eleanor Bruce — aka — about their new book, Things we Found in the Ground at Norwich Waterstones. Things we Found in the Ground charts Lucie and Ellie’s unlikely journey into the world of metal detecting — a world that both Andrew and much of the audience only knew from the TV show Detectorists. The conversation ranged from how they got started in the hobby and the wonderful community that surrounds it, to how metal detecting brought them in tune with the British countryside, as well as discussion of some of their favourite finds.

While Andrew might have been new to the world of metal detecting, he’s no stranger to the Roman world and his debut biography Rex Juba has recently been announced. Rex Juba tells the extraordinary story of the first-century king, Juba II of Mauretania, who went from orphan and Roman prisoner to king of North Africa in just twenty years. You can pre-order Rex Juba now ahead of its release on 6th August.

Yin F Lim signs with DHH Literary Agency

We’re also celebrating the news that our associate editor Yin F Lim has joined Abi Fellows’ list at DHH Literary Agency. Abi will represent Yin’s family memoir about her maternal grandmother’s emigration from Southern China to British Malaya, which will also shine light on the little-known history of the mui tsai (bondmaids). Yin’s proposal for this work-in-progress won the 2025 Mo Siewcharran Prize last October; it was the first time the prize was open to non-fiction submissions, with the theme of Reclaiming History.

Victoria Bennett in The Guardian

We’re very pleased to see Hinterland author Victoria Bennett talking about her forthcoming memoir The Apothecary by the Sea in The Guardian this week. In an interview with Donna Ferguson, Victoria discusses her move from Cumbria to the remote Orkney islands, her attempts at creating her apothecary garden and the life lessons that nature has taught her about letting go, loss and acceptance. Victoria’s piece of creative non-fiction, ‘Trace’, was published in Issue 17 of Hinterland.