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Sophie Mackintosh
Sophie Mackintosh's fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the Virago X Stylist short story prize. Her debut novel, The Water Cure, is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and forthcoming from Doubleday in the US.

Articles Available Online


Lena Andersson's ‘Acts of Infidelity’

Book Review

July 2018

Sophie Mackintosh

Book Review

July 2018

Acts of Infidelity is the second novel by Lena Andersson that follows unlucky-in-love heroine Ester Nilsson, and it’s another scalpel-sharp look at a doomed...

Fiction

May 2018

Self-Improvement

Sophie Mackintosh

Fiction

May 2018

I had been sent back from the city in disgrace, back to my parents’ house in the country. It...

[To be read aloud]   I want to begin – and I hope I don’t come across as autistic or anything like that (and I know I’m not supposed to say autistic, I know, I realised that as it was coming out, but I couldn’t stop it and I can’t unsay it so let’s just ignore it, can we?) – I want to begin by saying – and I don’t want to get bogged down with trying to find a way in (which is harder than you might imagine), we’ve got a lot to get through, so, but I want to begin by saying simply I want to begin by saying I want to begin   New paragraph Fresh start On   What I wanted to begin by saying was this: that I have always liked it best when you touch me by accident When you fall into me or brush past me or roll onto me in your sleep, to name but a few examples Motiveless contact Which is not of course to say I’ve never liked it when you’ve touched me on purpose That has its place But there’s a realm of experience – a realm of ecstasy – to which intentional contact allows, for me, no access I have always found a certain kind of intentionlessness – an intentionless act which nevertheless produces the desired outcome – extremely pleasurable Which is an admittedly unromantic way of putting it I’ve always liked it best when I’ve known there’s been no ulterior motive for physical conjunction Two unbidden bodies bound together in space: coming together, making contact, coming apart, unstained   Does this make sense? Would a concrete example help? Here’s a concrete example: imagine the scene: you’re going to put your hand to my cheek affectionately and, walking towards me, you trip over the cat – a cat who is at my feet, our cat – you stumble, your arm flies forwards and your hand, groping for support, it lands cupped on my cheek That your hand touches my

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh’s fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the...

Grace

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

Sophie Mackintosh

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

14. It comes for me in the middle of the day when I am preparing lunch, quartering a tomato then slicing each segment in...

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fiction

July 2012

Whatever Happened To Harold Absalon?

Simon Okotie

fiction

July 2012

1. The hotel lobby was both cleansed and fragrant, as was the receptionist speaking softly on the phone behind...

Prize Entry

April 2015

Every Woman to the Rope

Joanna Quinn

Prize Entry

April 2015

My father believed the sea to be covetous: a pleading dog that would lap at you adoringly, sidling up...

poetry

January 2015

Litanies of an Audacious Rosary

Enrique Vila-Matas

TR. Rosalind Harvey

poetry

January 2015

FEBRUARY 2008   * I’m outraged, but I’ve learned a way of reasoning that quickly defuses my exasperation. This...

 

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