THE BEST NEW CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Issue 1 SPRING
2019
Featuring new writing from
Rebecca Stott & Ian Thomson
In conversation with Damian Le Bas
Music
History Memoir Food Science Essay
Biography
CREATIVE NON-FICTION Reportage
Travel Psychoscape Autobiography Journalism Sports
Review
Hinterland offers an answer to the question ‘what is creative non-fiction?’ by showcasing the best new writing across the fields of memoir, essay, travel and food writing, reportage, psychoscape, biography, flash non-fiction and more. Our pages bring together work by established, award-winning authors alongside new writers, many of whom we are thrilled to publish for the first time and whose work, we promise, will merit your full attention. Often, the pieces you’ll find in Hinterland will straddle the boundaries between strands and be difficult to classify: we see this as a strength. Hinterland intends to challenge, move, entertain and, above all, be a fantastic read.
WELCOME TO ISSUE 1
Advocates for Hinterland: Trevor Goul-Wheeker, Nathan Hamilton, Rachel Hore, Kathryn Hughes, Helen Smith, Rebecca Stott, Ian Thomson Editorial Team Editors-In-Chief – Freya Dean & Andrew Kenrick Art Direction & Design – Tom Hutchings Business Support – Ben Watkins Readers – Susan K Burton, Aaron Deary, Margaret Hedderman, Yin F Lim, Aaron O'Farrell, Stephen Massil Submissions Hinterland is committed to paying writers and artists for all work we publish. Please send us your work via Submittable: hinterlandnonfiction.submittable.com We accept submissions year-round and endeavour to reply within 3 months. We regret we are unable to provide feedback. There is a small fee of £3 per submission. Subscriptions An annual subscription to Hinterland (four issues, print and digital) costs £34 U.K., £44 Europe, £54 Rest-of-world. Digital subscription only, £20. Please visit our website for full details. Distribution Hinterland is distributed worldwide by NBN International. For all trade orders contact +44 (0) 1752 202301 orders@nbninternational.com Advertising Please see our website for current rates, or to discuss sponsorship please contact Andrew Kenrick at hinterlandnonfiction@gmail.com Acknowledgments The Editors gratefully acknowledge financial contributions from the UEA Enterprise Santander fund and support from the UEA Publishing Project. Find Hinterland online at www.hinterlandnonfiction.com or contact us: hinterlandnonfiction@gmail.com ISBN: 978-1-911343-85-1 ISSN (Print): 2632-136X ISSN (Online): 2632-1378 Copyright is reserved to the authors and artists, their heirs and executors. Photography p117-123 © Helen James and Calumn James
THE BEST NEW CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Issue 1
2019
SPRING
Issue 1 / Spring 2019 6 Editorial 8 Contributors 18 FROM THE ARCHIVES Barbara Kingsolver writes to Doris Lessing 26 BRIEF LIVES Two Journal Entries Leo Vanderpot on Dwight Macdonald 218 INTERVIEW Hinterland in conversation with Damian Le Bas FLASH NON-FICTION 20 Confidence Game Randal Doane 22 Hazeri Amy Cotler 25 O, Garbage Men! Eileen Favorite 33 Holy Well Eileen Favorite 34 Just Like Home Scott Russell Morris PHOTO-ESSAY 106 Cullerfornia Helen James
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NON-FICTION 36 The Fall Rebecca Stott 56 Blue Murder Ian Thompson 72 A Hostess of the Floating World Susan Karen Burton 86 American Boys Are Fast, But Not As Fast As Ginger Boys Michael Kineman 124 Second Time Around Justin Kern 132 Yocknapatafa Daniel Uncapher 154 Hogiau Pen Garret Peter Goulding 174 Sabbatical Report Scott Coykendall 190 The Women At The Station Saloni Prasad 204 Flashpoint Josef Steiff COVER Dreamscape Joshua Jones Hinterland
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Editorial Welcome to this first issue of Hinterland, a magazine dedicated to the best new creative non-fiction. The world of non-fiction publishing has grown enormously in recent years – works of memoir, reportage, science, history, biography, food, landscape and travel writing, all have come to dominate our shelves. Many of the most popular among these straddle genres, carving out a remarkable hinterland within the world of writing. However where to find such writing before it arrives in the form of a bestseller? Our hope is that each issue of Hinterland will provide exactly this: a platform from which we can champion the best nonfiction writers from around the world, allowing new and upcoming authors the opportunity to have their work published – some of them for the very first time – alongside award-winning names; and to give you, our readers, a ready place to discover that talent. So where do we find our authors? As a new publisher, we’d like to be transparent about the way we source our content. We are both alumni of the University of East Freya Dean is of Dutch-British descent. She was an Elizabeth Kostova Foundation Finalist in 2017 and the recipient of the 2017/2018 Lorna Sage Award. Her work has appeared in Visual Verse, The Writes of Woman and UEA's NonFiction Anthology.
Anglia’s famed creative writing programme, so we are not short of talented peers – this issue features new work by five recent graduates of UEA, along with two awardwinning members of the faculty. However the remaining nine authors featured in these pages were entirely unknown to us when we began work on Hinterland – theirs is writing that we received via our open call on Submittable. Of those nine contributors, four are making their print debut with us – we’re confident it won’t be their last. Another detail of which we are proud: every one of our contributors is being paid for their work. We share this information because for some the publishing industry remains opaque and the route to publication obscure. We hope that, in outlining the way we work, writers of all experience might be encouraged to submit to Hinterland, knowing that we will be eager to read their work; and for you to feel confident that the writing we publish really is among the very best in new creative non-fiction. Freya Dean & Andrew Kenrick Editors-in-Chief Andrew Kenrick has worked as an archaeologist and an archivist, a writer and an editor. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of East Anglia, where he is researching new ways to write biographies of ancient figures.
Contributors Susan Karen Burton (A Hostess of the Floating World) lived and worked in Japan for 14 years before completing doctorates in history and in creative-critical writing. Her work has appeared in Times Higher Education, The Telegraph, The Manchester Review, Words and Women and Going Down Swinging. She is the co-author of two books in Japanese and, in 2018, a work in progress, Gaijin: Modern Japan Through Western Eyes, was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize.
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Amy Cotler (Hazeri) worked as a chef, cookery teacher, food writer and advocate in New York and New England, where she was the founding director of Berkshire Grown, an early farm-to-table initiative that received national recognition. She has authored five culinary books and hosted a web column for The New York Times. Forthcoming is a novel-length memoir, Unexpected Pleasures, Tales from a Culinary Alchemist. Amy currently lives in Mexico. Visit her at amycotler.com
Scott Coykendall (Sabbatical Report) is a professor at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, where he teaches Journalism, Technical Communication, and other writing courses. His poems have appeared in COG, Black Fox Literary Magazine, The Cossack Review, and The 2River View, among others. This is his first published non-fiction piece.
Randal Doane (Confidence Game) works as a copywriter in Northeast Ohio. Randal is the author of the award-winning Stealing All Transmissions: A Secret History of The Clash, which is a love story about four lads and a city named New York, as well as a segment of rock'n'roll history. He's written on music and culture for Alternative Press, Louder Than War and Harper's. Chilled martini glasses remain his favorite social media platform.
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Eileen Favorite (O, Garbage Men! and Holy Well) Eileen’s first novel, The Heroines, was translated into six languages. Her essays, poems and stories have appeared in many publications, including The Toast, Triquarterly, The Rumpus and Diagram. She has received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council for poetry and for prose and currently teaches writing and literature classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tom Hutchings is our in-house graphic designer and photographer, based in the south of London. When not wrangling words into columns or distressing letterforms, he's often found board gaming or painting miniatures. Have a look at his varied output at www.thorngraphicdesign.com
Helen James (Cullerfornia) began her career as a photographer in the North West of England before Peter Goulding (Hogiau Pen working as an educator at the Garret) is a climber and writer National Portrait Gallery, from the North of England. Open Eye Gallery and He has spent most of his Photoworks. She currently working life in kitchens, pubs works as an associate and on building sites. He lecturer at the University of now lives in rural Norfolk. Westminster, where she teaches He is working on Slatehead, ‘writing photography.’ Helen’s a history and memoir of the own writing focuses on the North Wales climbing scene. interplay of words and images; and often responds to the landscapes that have featured as backdrops in her life. Her son Calumn James is a surfer and maker of wooden things based in North Shields. 10 Hinterland
Joshua Jones (Dreamscape) is an illustrator based in Cambridge, who specialises in traditional media and dabbles in digital illustration. Alongside his editorial artwork, Josh has collaborated on a wide range of projects, including band posters, indie board games and scientific infographics. If he’s not drawing Josh is probably playing D&D, or walking his dog. Find him online at www.joshuajonesprojects.com Justin Kern (Second Time Around) is a former daily news reporter who currently lives in Milwaukee. His words have appeared in Utne Reader, Great Lakes Review, Forth, Wanderlust Journal, Longshot Island, Milwaukee Record and a trio of anthologies from Belt Publishing. Justin is also a lifelong amateur musician who throws horseshoes as a phony spiritual exercise.
Michael Kineman (American Boys Are Fast But Not As Fast As Ginger Boys) is an Anglo-American, born in the Midwestern United States but raised and educated in the British West Midlands. During his twenties, Michael worked in human rights law and taught English in the Far East before studying creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Memory, thirdculture identity and religious doubt are common themes in his writing. He is currently at work on his first book, The Fields We Used to Roam.
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Damian Le Bas (In Conversation With) is a writer and occasional filmmaker from West Sussex. His first book, The Stopping Places: a Journey through Gypsy Britain, is an exploration of Gypsy and Traveller history told through a year spent travelling around the country's old nomadic halting sites. It won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-fiction, was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week', and was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year.
Saloni Prasad (The Women At The Station) is from Surat, India. She writes about life, people and culture; likes to listen to Indian Classical music and can often be spotted talking to herself. She recently completed her Masters in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. In her former life, she was a project manager and an electrical engineer. Saloni blogs at www.theturquoiseink.com
Josef Steiff (Flashpoint) is a former licensed social worker from Appalachia. Josef Scott Russell Morris creates films, installations, ( Just Like Home) is a faculty performance and written member at the University of work that reflect his interest Utah Asia Campus. His work in the ways that people has appeared in Brevity, The struggle to make sense of Chattahoochee Review, Superstition impersonal events. His films Review and elsewhere. have been exhibited in the United States, Europe and Asia; his creative non-fiction has appeared in Batayan, the forthcoming Pikeville Review and via the independent publishing house Open Court. 12 Hinterland
Rebecca Stott (The Fall) is a novelist, broadcaster and historian. She has written several books of creative nonfiction including Darwin and the Barnacle, Darwin’s Ghosts and most recently a memoir, In the Days of Rain, which won the Costa Biography Prize 2017. Rebecca is Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and is currently writing a novel set in the ruins of sixth-century Londinium. Ian Thomson (Blue Murder) is the author of an acclaimed biography of Primo Levi, a study of Dante and two prize-winning works of reportage, Bonjour Blanc: A Journey Through Haiti and The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica. He also edited Articles of Faith: The Collected Tablet Journalism of Graham Greene. Ian is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award.
Daniel Uncapher (Yocknapatafa) is a Sparks Fellow at Notre Dame, where he received his MFA. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chicago Quarterly Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Penn Review, Tin House Online, and others. Leo Vanderpot (Brief Lives) lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. In recent years, his poems, stories and essays have appeared in fewer journals than he anticipated. He therefore bows to the exceptionally engaging discernment of Hinterland. Praise or slate him: leov10571@yahoo.com
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Like what you’ve read? Look out for the second issue of Hinterland, on sale August 2019. Better still, sign up for a subscription and get our next batch of stand-out writing delivered direct to your door, desktop or tablet.
Annual print & digital subscription £34 Four issues, saving £6 off list price
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Subscribers also enjoy the benefits of being able to submit their writing to Hinterland free of charge. Visit our website to subscribe:
www.hinterlandnonfiction.com/subscribe 236 Hinterland
ISSUE 2 SUMMER 2019 Including new writing from: RICHARD BEARD GEORGE SZIRTES ROGER CRANSE KINGA CYBULSKA YIN F LIM KATE ROMAIN SURESHKUMAR P. SEKAR As well as flash non-fiction, regular features, columns and an interview with Costa Award-winning author BART VAN ES
ON SALE AUGUST 2019 Hinterland
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Issue 1 / Spring 2019 Hinterland is a new quarterly magazine showcasing the best in creative non-fiction writing. Each issue features a stellar line-up of writing talent from around the globe: stories by established, best-selling authors as well as introducing you to a host of exciting new writers making their publishing debut. This first issue includes brand-new non-fiction by Costa Biography Award Winner Rebecca Stott (In the Days of Rain), W.H. Heinemann Prize Winner Ian Thomson (Primo Levi, Dante’s Divine Comedy) and an interview with Damian Le Bas (The Stopping Places).
Featuring new writing from: Susan Karen Burton Amy Cotler Scott Coykendall Randal Doane Eileen Favorite Peter Goulding Helen James Justin Kern Michael Kineman Scott Russell Morris Saloni Prasad Josef Steiff Rebecca Stott Ian Thomson Daniel Uncapher Leo Vanderpot Cover artwork by Joshua Jones
“Each contribution crackles with purpose, style and a certain kind of soul that any writer would kill for. It feels like we’ve been waiting for Hinterland for ever, without realising quite how badly we needed it.” – Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
“Hinterland offers a rich stew of the best ingredients, leaving the reader hungry for the next issue – for the next glorious gumbo of delectable creative non-fiction.” – Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, author of Swan Song
£10
ISBN 978-1-911343-85-1
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