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Leon Craig
Leon Craig is a writer and editor based in Berlin. She has written for the TLS, the Literary ReviewAnother Gaze and the London Magazine among others. Her queer gothic short story collection Parallel Hells is published by Sceptre Books and she is currently working on her first novel The Decadence.

Articles Available Online


Cosy Violence

Book Review

June 2023

Leon Craig

Book Review

June 2023

The 22 year old Australian narrator of K Patrick’s sensuous, subversive debut novel is a long way from home. A matron at an unnamed...

Fiction

September 2021

Lick the Dust

Leon Craig

Fiction

September 2021

When you misplace something in the library here, it stays lost for a very long time. The eighteenth-century catalogue...

October 12, 1976, Soho, London Andy stood in the alley outside the Prince of Wales He felt in the pocket of his leather jacket and found most of a sheet of orange sunshine Andy couldn’t remember putting it there He couldn’t remember how he got to the cinema from the squat in Stoke Newington But he knew that it was morning, that he was in a crowd of people, some heavy, heavy people, some lightweights, old freaks, young punks, odd straights, and that Fantasia was about to start inside Andy balled the blotter in his hand and quickly stuffed it in his mouth He gagged but kept chewing until it was gone He turned and gestured to a wrinkly geezer wearing a tartan scarf but no shirt who was seated on a blackened sheet of cardboard in front of the fire exit The man held up a can of bitter Andy bolted a swig and handed it back ‘Ta very much’, said one, ‘Nae bother’, said the other A short time later Andy was sat in the dark amid zoo noises, crying and slurping, and that is when the lights began   April 13, 1972, Blackpool Andy opened the front door and dropped two plastic bags at the foot of the stairs: one with his schoolwork, the other with his PE kit in He went into the kitchen, turned off the radio, took a bowl from the draining board, opened a cupboard door and took out a packet of Weetabix Andy put two biscuits into the bowl, hesitated, and took one out, placing it back in the packet He opened the fridge, which was empty except for a withered scallion and a dried piece of cheese Andy returned the remaining Weetabix biscuit to the packet, folded it neatly down and put it back in the cupboard He washed the bowl and placed it on the draining board Andy went into the living room, sat down and stared into the empty fireplace   January 5, 1990, Liverpool Andy kneeled on the wooden floor, naked and sobbing, snot roping out of his nose and down

Contributor

April 2016

Leon Craig

Contributor

April 2016

Leon Craig is a writer and editor based in Berlin. She has written for the TLS, the Literary Review, Another Gaze and the London Magazine among...

Art Review

April 2019

Oscar Wilde Temple, Studio Voltaire

Leon Craig

Art Review

April 2019

The light is dim, the air richly scented. Little purple tea lights flicker in the votive candle rack and...

[Getting] Down with Gal Pals

Feature

November 2018

Leon Craig

Feature

November 2018

There’s a moment in Laura Kaye’s underrated novel English Animals when the protagonist Mirka, sitting in the village bar with her married lover, notices...
Mute Canticle

Prize Entry

April 2016

Leon Craig

Prize Entry

April 2016

Giulio the singing fascist came to pick me up from the little airport in his Jeep. He made sure to come round and hold...

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Interview

January 2016

Interview with Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Roland Glasser

Interview

January 2016

Roof terrace of the Shangri-La hotel, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, USA; late afternoon, 8 October 2015. We ensconce ourselves in...

Interview

Issue No. 15

Interview with Zadie Smith

Jennifer Hodgson

Interview

Issue No. 15

Zadie Smith’s biography is one of contemporary writing’s fondest and most famous yarns of precocious and meteoric literary success....

Interview

December 2013

Interview with Tess Jaray

Lily Le Brun

Interview

December 2013

In the light-filled rooms of The Piper Gallery is a painting show that features no paint. Brought together by...

 

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