Venue’s Creative Writing section has been privileged to publish many great pieces this semester. From poems about failed relationships (and their consequent email exchanges…) to nonfiction satirising modern masculinity, it has been wonderful to bear witness to the talent and skill UEA’s writers possess.

Unlike the paper’s other sections, Creative Writing has released monthly themes open to submission rather than calls asking for specified content. August’s prompt, ‘A Room with a View,’ inspired some thought-provoking pieces. In “I INVITE MY PARENTS TO STAND IN THE SAME ROOM AGAIN”, Liva Jean paints an image of a room with an unlikelyview. Likening the family unit to “motors on sinking paddleboats,” Jean considers the hopeful moments before its deterioration with a mature retrospect on their eventual futility, asking, “weren’t we too much / island instead of ocean / to be good dancers / didn’t we dance anyway”. Still, she retains a sense of childhood without that foresight, with memories of a dance that went “up and / down and / up / and / down,” suggesting that while the marriage didn’t work, the time was not wasted. 

September’s prompt, “I’m glad you called,” similarly provided writers with an opportunity to showcase a wide spectrum of creative interpretations. In “On Leaving the Cottage,” Fiona Hill meditates on October evenings spent “[falling] into love / With the autumn”, “[tearing] thistles” with “the dog and the dark”. Hill envisages these evenings as charted by “crow calls” and “[breaking] October with the sound” of her dog’s name, imaginatively documenting the “calls” of an Autumn evening spent in nature. 

On the other hand, Liva Jean concocts a wholly different kind of call, or in this case, email — to the dreaded ex-partner. In “UPON FINDING AN EMAIL TO MY EX”, Jean explores the distance time has put between the speaker and their former partner, trying to “imagine being able to imagine / you”. This culminates in the “ex” only known “as a brittle blur of cool orange / pooling into the folds / of my eye sockets”. This simple image appeals to the senses evocatively; while the “ex” is no longer known to the speaker, associated colours and tastes remain, suggesting there is only so much distance they can put between themselves and memory.

In October, we received an overwhelming number of submissions for the prompt “Man Cave,” and those published spanned from satirical to deeply poignant. “Man Cave™” advertises a new “male living space” for the “frustrated male” with an all-inclusive mini-fridge, craft IPA, faux record player, and finance/business/economics degree package. This, of course, ensures the consumer’s “Manhood is At Its Largest”.

In “dad’s house”, Lisa Trovato-Monastra immerses us in a world of “bars, bells, sevens, / diamonds, cherries and lemons”. “Dad” is secluded in a man cave of his own, different from other depictions of teenage boys’ basements or early man’s canvases. Instead, we are thrown into a poignant portrayal of gambling addiction, with its “unopened windows, and thick smoke”. Trovato-Monastra’s use of repetition, “bell, bell …, / cherry, cherry …, / beer, burps, and vaffanculos” furthers a sense of suffocation as “dad’s” life becomes eclipsed by the vibrance of the gambling world, highlighting its isolating and fatal effects. 

Despite “Man Cave”’s overwhelming popularity, the works published in November inspired by the last prompt of the semester, “Lotus Eaters,” were no less inventive. In “Forget Me Knots”, Hebe Purdy plays with ideas of blurred time, words, and of course, forgetfulness, as associated with the lotus eaters myth. In a way not dissimilar to Jean’s “UPON FINDING AN EMAIL TO MY EX”, Purdy conveys the distance time has put between speaker and subject, remarking upon its “strangeness” and “curdling” — denoting a thickening that becomes more and more difficult to wade through. This sense of slow haziness is exacerbated by the “murmured blurred words,” punctuated by “[stings] and [cuts] / Clean in meaning” as they are realised into a harsh reality. This interpretation of “Lotus Eaters” demonstrates both a removal from and recognition of circumstance, how they lend to and juxtapose one another.

This semester has been a valuable and rewarding one for all the editorial team involved with Venue’s Creative Writing section, which we owe to our wonderful contributors. Many thanks to Aarohi Deshmukh, Fiona Hill, Grace Shaw, Hebe Purdy, Lara Parsons, Lisa Trovato-Monastra, Liva Jean, Ruby Robbins, Sankavi Naresh, and our anonymous writers. We couldn’t have done it without you!

If you’re interested in submitting to Venue’s Creative Writing section, you can join Concrete through UEA SU to get added to the Concrete Writers team, where themes are posted monthly. We look forward to reading your work next semester!

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