The Reader Berlin - HOME IS ELSEWHERE - An Anthology

Published by The Reader Berlin

Text copyright © individual authors 2018

Cover images adapted from artwork by Michael Salu, © Michael Salu 2018

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.thereaderberlin.com

The Reader Berlin

PRESENTS

HOME IS ELSEWHERE:

AN ANTHOLOGY

COMPILED BY

Victoria Gosling & Rachel Margetts

CONTENTS

FOREWORD FOREWORD As a child, my home was a farm in the south west of England. Now, I cannot think of a better place to grow up, but at the time I longed for the elsewheres I read about in books, and as soon as I could, I set off to find them. Elsewheres are rather moreish, and it’s all too easy to imagine the next will be the one for you. Eventually, I came to Berlin where I founded The Reader. By some strange magic, the best part of a decade later, Berlin is home too. Writing this brings to mind the moment when you look at someone you love and remember when they were still a stranger, wondering at which point the balance tipped, and how easily it might have tipped the other way. Berlin is home, but like the lover who keeps surprising you, the city has too many faces to ever entirely lose its elsewhere-quality, so the theme ‘Home is Elsewhere’ - chosen for the 2017 Berlin Writing Prize - is an apt one. It’s a doubly fitting choice since this year’s prize is a month’s residency in the Circus Hotel, a thrilling and gorgeous location for an author to feel not quite at home, to enjoy elsewhere at its most seductive. I’m certain our prize winner Dolores Walshe, whose entry The Wooden Box so impressed our judges, will write great things there. Seductive is a good word to describe this anthology. Poised, unnerving, moving, daring and everything imbetween, the ten winning submissions showcased here were selected from hundreds of entries by our panel of judges. Reading them is a pleasure, publishing them an honour. Each author has taken the theme and interpreted it in an entirely singular way – from Sophie Mackintosh’s raw and wringing Holiday with T, to the mysterious journey hinted at in Daisy Johnson’s Sylvia; from the disintegrating home in Head like a Hole by Amy Lee Lillard, to Lei Wang’s elegant meditation on the meaning of home in FLYING LESSONS. I hope that you enjoy reading them and discovering these wonderful writers.Of course, as I write this, it occurs to me that reading is an activity that allows you to be at home and elsewhere at the same time … Victoria Gosling Berlin, 2018

The Wooden Box by Dolores Walshe

Elsewhere, OK by Alissa Jones Nelson

Thirty-Six Times by Jodie Noel Vinson

Unsettled by Pippa Goldschmidt

Sylvia by Daisy Johnson

Head like a Hole by Amy Lee Lillard

Holiday with T by Sophie Mackintosh

The Sunshine State by Lizzie Roberts

Whatever Trevor by Sharlene Teo

FLYING LESSONS by Lei Wang

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS & JUDGES

I would like to thank everyone at epubli for all their help and support in creating this anthology. Furthermore, this book would not exist were it not for the valiant efforts of Reader Berliners Emily Roach Osbourne, Callie Payne and Rachel Margetts, the munificence of our judges Florian Duijsens, Paul Scraton, Michael Salu, Irenosen Okojie and Katrin Schönig, and the help of the SAND team readers, Lieke Kessels, Matthew Deery and Sara Bellini. An extra thank you is due to Michael Salu for allowing us to use his wonderful artwork. Finally, much gratitude is owed to our sponsors RSVP Berlin, The British Council Germany and – last but by no means least – the amazingly generous Circus Hotel.

As a child, my home was a farm in the south west of England. Now, I cannot think of a better place to grow up, but at the time I longed for the elsewheres I read about in books, and as soon as I could, I set off to find them. Elsewheres are rather moreish, and it’s all too easy to imagine the next will be the one for you. Eventually, I came to Berlin where I founded The Reader. By some strange magic, the best part of a decade later, Berlin is home too. Writing this brings to mind the moment when you look at someone you love and remember when they were still a stranger, wondering at which point the balance tipped, and how easily it might have tipped the other way.

Berlin is home, but like the lover who keeps surprising you, the city has too many faces to ever entirely lose its elsewhere-quality, so the theme ‘Home is Elsewhere’ - chosen for the 2017 Berlin Writing Prize - is an apt one. It’s a doubly fitting choice since this year’s prize is a month’s residency in the Circus Hotel, a thrilling and gorgeous location for an author to feel not quite at home, to enjoy elsewhere at its most seductive. I’m certain our prize winner Dolores Walshe, whose entry The Wooden Box so impressed our judges, will write great things there.

Seductive is a good word to describe this anthology. Poised, unnerving, moving, daring and everything imbetween, the ten winning submissions showcased here were selected from hundreds of entries by our panel of judges. Reading them is a pleasure, publishing them an honour. Each author has taken the theme and interpreted it in an entirely singular way – from Sophie Mackintosh’s raw and wringing Holiday with T, to the mysterious journey hinted at in Daisy Johnson’s Sylvia; from the disintegrating home in Head like a Hole by Amy Lee Lillard, to Lei Wang’s elegant meditation on the meaning of home in FLYING LESSONS.

I hope that you enjoy reading them and discovering these wonderful writers.Of course, as I write this, it occurs to me that reading is an activity that allows you to be at home and elsewhere at the same time …

Victoria Gosling

Berlin, 2018

Dolores Walshe

And you expecting a woman, wanting a woman, someone private like yourself, but instead you get a man, small, olive-skinned with serpentine eyes, standing at your door, Sally spilling around him nervous-grinned talking about him now having refugee status, him and his shabby cloth bag holding life tighter than his loose arm skin. Aw, Jesus. What are you in for here?

Her eyes beseeching, trying to convince you this wizened creature was meant to be a woman, the office got their files confused, didn’t they now, six o’clock of a Friday and her skedaddling to Paris for the weekend, with no place to put him except into the bed you’ve got ready for what you’re now wild suspicious might’ve all along been him.

He doesn’t seem to notice the state of your face or Sally’s gabbling excuses. You mutter that you’re pleased to meet him. His hand is otherworldly for lack of flesh, all phalanges and metacarpals, and instantly you crave banishing the death in him, crave a good run-in with the grim fella, since you couldn’t do it for Manny. It’s a roadside conversion, despite it happening in your hall.

He’s hounded. Eyes deep to bottomless, unfathomable. Winter brows like your own, but jutting in an overhang that’ll stop rain. His grey roof is the surprise, the look of a tsunami in motion, thatched thicker than an old cottage. Even after death, hair keeps growing, he’s testament to this. Nails too, digging into you with the handshake. Abandon your phantom, woman, this is a being you can save.

And what does he see looking from under the brows? Your mind is as empty of the answer as your life.