Reading time: 10 mins By Alice Austin Chapter I: Leaving Damascus Mohamad grins as he tells me “My cousins also came by boat but from the west. Each one suffered in a different way. The thing […]

Reading time: 5 mins By Amy Harris-Sandstrom & Sally Connor Ask us what we’re doing on a Thursday night and there will only be one answer. “I’ll be at choir practice”. This will usually be followed by […]

Reading time: 8 minutes By Alice Austin Part 1 It began when I met Laura in The Green Tortoise Hostel where we were both studying at SF State University for the semester. She’d hitchhiked her way down the coast […]

Reading time: 4 minutes By Alice Austin The runway at San Francisco airport lies adjacent to the bay. As the aircraft descends, the blue water looms so close it’s as though the plane will skim neatly onto […]

Reading time: 3 minutes By Alice Austin It was a beautiful day in May 2013 and we were celebrating my grandma’s 80th birthday. Over 100 guests were milling around a beautiful garden in Sevenoaks. Magnums of […]

Reading time: 3 minutes By Alice Austin When I was 19 years old I remember saying to a friend ‘I’ll give up smoking when I’m older, like 21 or something.’ The friend I was speaking to […]

Essay 2 of 2 Reading time: 5 mins By Alice Austin As specified in essay 1, Why quitting my job in London and moving to Berlin solved all of my problems, I now have lots of […]

By Alice Austin I was in the office kitchen, it was a Monday afternoon Gary was there making a coffee and humming a tune He was a senior designer, always stank of cigars Had a bit […]

Essay 1 of 2 Reading time: 5 minutes Photography: Melinda Greenacre By Alice Austin In April 2016 I ran into a brick wall at my job at a PR agency in London. I was 25 years old and […]

Reading time: 5 minutes By Alice Austin Whenever someone asks me the name of my football team, I feel a surge of pride and mild apprehension as I foresee the expression of surprise and confusion on […]

Reading time: 5 minutes By Alice Austin Right now I am sitting in a coffee shop in Berlin at 10am on a Saturday morning. I’ve joined a meet up group called Shut Up and Write. I […]

IMHO, Instagram is bullshit. Behind every image of a group of friends having the time of their lives are human beings stopping what they are doing to look like they’re having the time of their lives. […]