THE BEST NEW CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Issue 2 SUMMER
2019
YO U YAO RU E HAERREE HERE
Featuring new writing from
Hinterland Richard Beard
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In conversation with Bart van Es
Issue 2 / Summer 2019 6 Editorial 8 Contributors 16 BRIEF LIVES Mr Speaker Bercow, Man of the People Stephen Massil 224 INTERVIEW Hinterland in conversation with Bart Van Es FLASH NON-FICTION 23 The Common Mango Caroline Gardam 26 The Night's Content Moderation Watch Oath Spencer Darr 28 Afternoon Light Scott Russell Morris 30 I Need To Know How To Hard Boil An Egg Allison Pugh 31 Twelve and Holding Nicole Im 118 PHOTO-ESSAY There Are No Polar Bears Where I Live Martin Eberlen
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NON-FICTION 34 The Archangel's Way Richard Beard 52 Whose Play Is It Anyway? Antoinette Moses 74 On Krakowskie Przedmieście Kinga Elwira Cybulska 96 Tourist In My Homeland Yin F. Lim 142 Parasites and Autoclaves Kate Romain 162 Rahmania Sureshkumar P. Sekar 174 Nacional 27 Nicholas Ward 194 This Is Not a Ghost Story But A Haunting Katie Simpson 204 National Newark and Essex Roger Conant Cranse COVER You Are Here Richard Horne
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Editorial At time of writing our print run for Issue 1 is a handful of copies away from selling out and the number of submissions we’ve received has passed the 350 mark – not bad for a magazine that is still only a few months’ old. The demand for a publication dedicated solely to non-fiction is clear; but what we’ve been even more thrilled by is the often daring nature of the work that we have received – whether that be in terms of theme, form or an alchemical melding of genres. So, welcome to this second issue of Hinterland, which sees our writers continue to chart thrilling new ground in the realm of non-fiction. Let Richard Beard take you on a journey along The Archangel’s Way, follow Antoinette Moses as she explores the possibilities of scriptwriting to describe real, historical events. Other work featured in this issue is equally far-flung in both time and place and lives up to our promise to bring you the best new non-fiction from around the globe. Nicholas Ward takes us back to one night in Chicago in a sharp, wistful tale of early manhood. Yin Lim revisits her native Malaysia and its cuisine, through the eyes of a tourist. 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.
Sureshkumar P. Sekar pens a love-letter to the music of A.R. Rahman, Roger Cranse revisits a troubling boyhood encounter and Kate Romain takes us on an awkward second date. Family history is central to both Kinga Cybulska’s On Krakowskie Przedmieście and Katie Simpson’s This Is Not A Ghost Story But A Haunting, and in each case these writers describe that past in richly layered, unexpected ways. In our regular Brief Lives feature, Stephen Massil puts John Bercow under the lens in a beautifully distilled piece of biography. Equally topical, our photo essay this month comes from Martin Eberlen on the subject of climate change, while our interview with Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl, turns around the legacy of post-war Europe, reinventing the biographical form, and the work of W.G. Sebald. All this alongside a selection of flash non-fiction that does just what flash pieces should: dazzle, unsettle, delight – and leave you wanting more. Enjoy! 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 Richard Beard (The Archangel’s Way) has written six novels and four books of narrative nonfiction. His memoir The Day That Went Missing won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Roger Conant Cranse (National Newark and Essex) was born and raised in New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1963 and served in the US Peace Corps in Nepal and Vietnam. His memoir, The Hearts and Minds Guys, about his experiences during the Vietnam war appeared in Raritan and was named a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays of 2013. Roger has spent most of his career teaching at the Community College of Vermont, where he also lives. 8 Hinterland
Kinga Elwira Cybulska (On Krakowskie Przedmieście) was born in Eastern Europe. She has lived in Kraków, Galway and London, and currently works as a bookseller. She earned her MA in Polish Literature and Language, studied Journalism at Jagiellonian University; and Creative Writing at Cambridge University and UEA. She has contributed to the anthology of immigrant poetry Landing Places and Galway: City of Strangers. Her non-fiction has been published in Machina, Zadra and Ale Historia.
Spencer Darr (The Night’s Content Moderation Watch) is a non-fiction writer currently focusing on the relationships between people, love and technology. His work has appeared in Atlas Obscura and The Nervous Breakdown. A first generation college grad from Pecan Hill, Texas, USA, he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Literary Nonfiction at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Bart van Es (In Conversation With) was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Norway, Dubai, Indonesia and the U.K. He studied English Literature at Cambridge and is now Professor of English at Oxford. His academic books include Shakespeare in Company and Shakespeare’s Comedies. In 2014 van Es began to look into his family’s wartime history, knowing that a Jewish girl, Lien, had lived in hiding with his grandparents during the occupation. He met Lien, now aged 82, and began the first of a series of interviews that formed the basis for The Cut Out Girl; which won the Costa Book of the Year 2018 and the Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize. Translations are out or forthcoming in fourteen languages. Hinterland
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Martin Eberlen (There Are No Polar Bears Where I Live) is a London-based documentary photographer, visual artist and writer. Martin graduated in 2018 with a distinction from the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography course at London College of Communication and the same year was selected, with just thirty other artists from around the globe, to be part of Parallel Photo Platform. As part of a year-long cycle, these artists create a new body of work to be exhibited in various European cities. Caroline Gardam (The Common Mango) is a writer and editor based in south-east Queensland, Australia. Her work has been published in magazines and newspapers across Australia, including Meanjin. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Arts (Writing, Editing, and Publishing) from the University of Queensland. 10 Hinterland
Richard Horne (You Are Here) is a graphic designer, illustrator, author, screen and gocco printer. His books include the best selling 101 Things To Do Before You Die series and the Modern Day Spotter's Guide amongst others. He also illustrated the best selling The Dangerous Book for Boys, winner of the 2007 book of the year at the British Book Awards. His clients include The National Trust, Guardian & Guardian Guide, UEA, Comic Relief, Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, Universal Music, Warner Music and the V&A Museum. Tom Hutchings is our inhouse graphic designer and photographer, based in the south of London. A brand new father, Tom is currently wishing for a few more hours in the day to get some extra sleep. Have a look at his varied output at www.thorngraphicdesign.com.
Nicole Im (Twelve and Holding) was born and raised in California. Her work has appeared in Freeman’s Journal, Literary Hub and The Huffington Post. She holds an MFA in Creative Non-fiction from The New School and is currently working on a memoir. Visit her at www.nicoleim.com.
Dru Marland (The Archangel’s Way) is a poet, illustrator and mechanic. She lives among the voles on the Kennet and Avon Canal.
Stephen Massil (Mr Speaker Bercow, Man of the People) held a senior position at the University of London Library, which he combined with postings at the Huguenot Yin F. Lim Library, Sir John Soane’s (Tourist in My Homeland) is a Museum, the National Trust Malaysian-born writer and and the Garrick Club. He editor who is now based in is a Vice-President of the the UK. Interested in food, Jewish Historical Society family stories and the East of England, a Fellow of the Asian diaspora, her work has Society of Antiquaries and of been published in several the Library Association; and anthologies including Who a contributor to the Oxford Are We Now? A Collection of Dictionary of National Biography. True Stories about Brexit. Find In 2016 he gained an MA in her at yinflim.com and on Biography and Creative NonTwitter @YinFLim. Fiction from UEA, where his principal subject was Lost Cousins, chronicling a series of historical figures and their connections, with an autobiographical undertow.
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Antoinette Moses (Whose Play Is It Anyway?) is an author who has published over twenty books of awardwinning language-learner literature. She is also a playwright with a PhD in documentary theatre and has recently retired from teaching creative writing at UEA and producing the Festival of Literature for Young people (FLY), which she co-founded in 2013. She previously worked for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, re-founded and ran the Cambridge Animation Festival and helped set up the Hiroshima Animation Festival. In 2016 Antoinette published the first extract of her memoirs in Words and Women 3.
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Allison Pugh (I Need to Know How to Hard Boil an Egg) is a writer from North Central West Virginia who resides in Chesapeake. She earned her MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2015 and is a fiction editor at Heartwood, a literary magazine in association with WVWC. This is her first published piece. Kate Romain (Parasites and Autoclaves) is an Anglo-American writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She recently completed an MA in Biography and Creative Non-fiction at the University of East Anglia before somewhat spontaneously relocating to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she currently resides.
Sureshkumar P. Sekar (Rahmania) is a writer from Salem, India. He studied mechanical engineering and worked as a software engineer for thirteen years before gaining his MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in 2018. He is currently working on a hybrid musicological memoir, Leitmotif, and a monograph on Indian film scores, The Music of Lagaan. He will shortly begin doctoral study on film music at the Royal College of Music, London.
Nicholas Ward’s (Nacional 27) writing has appeared with The Billfold, Bird's Thumb, Catapult, Midwestern Gothic, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, HowlRound, and others. He is a company member with 2nd Story, a Chicago-based storytelling collective, and the Booking Manager at Young Chicago Authors.
Katie Simpson (This Is Not A Ghost Story But A Haunting) is a writer and photographer in San Francisco. Her work has been featured in Eastern Iowa Review, Boston Accents, and Entropy Magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @honest_creative.
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