Mailing List


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...

sweet sweet agency   the candy here is hard & filled & there is nothing i love more than to be treasured if nobody’s watching i just do nothing: lie down don’t hardly breathe, keep my face in careful stillness not to crease its cute forgettability the world is full of edible munchkins & it is my life’s work to work out how to stay creamy on the inside, how not to sour myself up with little nips of this or that or otherwise cut holes in myself thru which to be seen i must learn to love what i cannot know: the wide bleached anus on a porn blog, the insane demands of toddlers, the desire for moderation or slimness of affection, the reasons lovers leave, the trash my cat brings back, the crack of footsteps in the woods at night, why the killer kills i learn it all the hard way but fwiw i would never snap the rabbit’s neck again i would rewind i would keep it every time     honey lamb   don’t remember going downstairs saying sorry or nevermind just the moment of waking not knowing if it’s dusk or dawn sweating like a hothouse flower red & wet & pulled up from under & gasping steeped & steaming like a teabag & drunk on sleep & beer & sadness blue & dewy as a hothouse flower & the white white vodka crouching neat as a bullet low inside me & burning light like a living laser & i feed it – milk & bread & honey & lamb – until i’m sticky as an ant & shining like a hothouse flower thrumming with the urgent clag of honey blood across my chest in uneven lubbing – my vodka heart trembles like a chihuahua & bruises break across my skin all purple & yellow as hothouse flowers & the white hot vodka stars at dusk & dawn glitter inside me i am beautiful as a hothouse flower when i turn myself on i light up in twinkling points between the milky bones of my ribs & pelvis & all the bulbs i planted in my fat hot head burst into bright flowers through my eyes & my teeth bleat like a lamb & i spark myself up into a column of coloured light & fire

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...

READ NEXT

feature

June 2014

Turning the Game Around

Daniel Galera

TR. Rahul Bery

feature

June 2014

Once upon a time there was – no, better: you are a thief who wanders through the cities and...

fiction

Issue No. 3

Forkhead Box

Jeremy M. Davies

fiction

Issue No. 3

What interests me most is that Schaumann, the state executioner, bred mice. In his spare time. Sirens, ozone, exhaust...

fiction

Issue No. 20

Track

Nicole Flattery

fiction

Issue No. 20

My boyfriend, the comedian, took pleasure in telling me about rejection – how it came about, how to cope...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required