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Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du Monde depicts a realistic, close-up view of a woman's genitalia: one of the most notorious paintings ever made. This novel seeks to give the painting a voice from under the male gaze, following the painting from her production in 1866 up to the present day. This is a journey from revolutionary Paris to Nazi-controlled Budapest, to the birth of French psychoanalysis in the 1960s. Throughout, the painting describes how it feels to be sexually objectified by her different owners. Using the voices of women who were exploited, as models and objects, sheds a new light on how we, as a society, look at images which have been canonized as unimpeachable.

Anna, convicted of murdering Captain Vasilyev is on her way to Siberia, Boris, who actually killed Vasilyev, escaped to Geneva, but tortured by his abandonment of Anna plans to return to rescue her. Darina, Vasilyev's widow, seeking revenge, joins the secret police to find Boris and Rosa, his twin sister.Russia, 1906. The revolution of the previous year is being crushed by the Tsar. Trio Boris, Rosa and Anna have been separated as a consequence of their actions in 1905.A fast paced sequel to Blackbird's Song.

Poets who jolly us along with assurances that if winter comes, spring is on its heels, would put it quite differently if writing during the closing days of the Anthropocene. This is our 'summer' issue, but with the honourable exception of a few warmer days, Yorkshire has so far escaped much manifestation that we have emerged from the colder season. All the more reason to consume the writings of imaginative souls who create their own weather, or observe climactic changes of both personal and cosmic significance. Whatever our unease about how humans are behaving in the days of climate change, at least our creativity is keeping AI at bay (or is it ...?). It's rare that we fail to get poems about the natural world, stories about family relationships, discussions of global politics, and writing that is not necessary primarily about anything but simply putting language through a work out, testing its limits. But how often do you read an ode to a fly? Meet Kurt Cobain in Whitley Bay? Read a lesson plan for anger management? Find black holes in your pockets? Read on.Bob Beagrie is the first guest in a new feature for Dream Catcher, called 'In conversation with ....'. in which the Editor discusses with a fellow poet not only their current work, but their ideas about poetry, their influences and future plans. Having heard Bob perform his lushly hybrid work, accompanied by musicians using home-made instruments (provoking more questions that it would be polite to ask in just one evening), Bob was invited to the first subject.

The Department of Certainty sets up a 'what if' world where our brains are populated by competing departments. Jessica is in the 'real world.' She is a child protection social worker who decides that she will kill herself before the end of the day. Colin works in Jessica's soul. He and his friends are in a race against time to prevent Jessica from throwing herself into the Thames. Their task is to work out who or what is responsible for Jessica's suicidal thoughts and finally to steer her away from death on Vauxhall Bridge. The Department of Certainty is set in a surreal world that's all too familiar to anyone who's wrestled with doing the right thing in the teeth of doing it the right way. Told in a wry, fresh style, this is a moving yet highly entertaining debut novel. Greg Michaelson, author of The Wave Singer (Argyll, 2008) and co-author of Equinox (Stairwell, 2023).Infused with a balance of dry humour and sadness that keeps the other-worldliness rooted in the human condition. Well-paced and full of drama. It made me wonder what's going on in my own brain.Hannah CorbettClever, funny, un-put-downable - the inner workings of Jessica's mind are laid bare in a highly original and humorous way, whilst her fate hangs in the balance. Will she find a way through? A must read!Jane Cook

Isla and Lac's mum is missing, but has left clues, and an emergency credit card. The children travel from Birmingham to Mora, a Scottish island, camping and tracking their mum. Hampered by challenges and unsure of who to trust, can Isla and Lac succeed in their mission? What else will they find... and lose? For ages 10 and up.A beautiful, gripping, realistic story about a brave girl and her little brother on a seemingly impossible quest. An unpredictable rollercoaster from start to finish. There's a wonderful sense of place, and the ending satisfied me completely. - Clare Weze, author of The Lightning Catcher and The Storm SwimmerBy the end of this touching and unpredictable coming-of-age story, the Mission has gathered layers of meaning in an ever-deepening mystery and adventure. Just when it looks like Isla and Lac have accomplished one mission, another begins. A unique tale with a vivid setting and dynamic characters: I was hooked to the end.- Jennifer Burkinshaw, author of Igloo and Happiness Seeker

What do you do when you leave your 2 year old in a Tesco shopping trolley? You know you need help. A new age nanny and chiropractic sister help teacher, Robin MacFarlane, navigate grief and single fatherhood.

Perspectives on medicine in the UK from ten contributors: GPs, hospital doctors, nurses, podiatrists, a care quality commission inspector and a patient. Each contributor provides a brief summary of their background, education and relevant experience, and then describes a few memorable incidents from their career. For most of the tales in the volume, no knowledge of medicine is necessary. When technical terms are used (they can't be avoided in some cases), they're explained in footnotes at the end of the story. Overall, the book differs from other collections of medical anecdotes in its breadth of perspectives and in its championing of the National Health Service, which all the contributors learned to value both as practitioners and as patients.

A poetic journey through the chaos of modern life, told from a neurodivergent perspective.

Literary Arts Magazine featuring poetry, prose, reviews and the art of Richard Moulton

It's March 1984 and the miners' strike has just started. By exploring both famous and previously unseen photographs through the lens of poetry, STRIKE captures the turbulence of one of the longest industrial disputes in British history, and the spirit of a marginalised community on the verge of profound change.In STRIKE we journey from the North East which inspires Billy Elliot, to Wivenhoe Docks where flying pickets attempt to stop coal imports, to children riddling coal on spoil tips in Wales. We come face to face with politicised 'Women Against Pit Closures' and riot police brutality, and we discover what motivates Scargill while Thatcher's tactics are laid bare in the Ridley Plan. The BBC's reversed news footage of the Battle of Orgreave illustrates how the media manipulates coverage and the infamous ballot box stands silent. But there are moments of humanity: an impromptu game of football between Nottinghamshire police and strikers, the Pits and Perverts concert organised by 'Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners', and a Scottish policeman giving a picket the kiss of life. By 1985, these poems ache with strike-breakers, impacted children, and tragic deaths, but even in this most desperate of class struggles there are still flashes of humour and hope.

DI AmbroseThe DI Ambrose Mysteries are set in the late 1950s and early '60s, a period of great change that seems like an era ago. Skull DaysNewly promoted to Detective Chief Inspector, Ambrose leads a serious crime team, with officers including reader's favourites, DI Winters, WPC Meadows, PC Sutton, and PC Green, a rookie from London, learning country policing. When a girl goes missing from an expensive boarding school and a teacher drowns in mysterious circumstances, a chain of events develops that stretches Ambrose and his team to its limits.Skull Days is the fifth novel in the series, after Foul Play, Poison Pen, Close Disharmony and Poetic Justice.

Accessible lyrical poetry reflecting on the thoughts, people, memories and mysteries that lie beneath the surface and haunt the margins of our lives. Doreen Hinchliffe's technical mastery makes her sound contemporary while using traditional forms.''What Hinchliffe discovers in the margins are the things we've neglected or forgotten. She finds her subjects in edgelands, in shadows, and brings them into the light with a painter's precision for detail and vibrancy. The highlight is the stunning sequence Another Country, a heroic crown of sonnets that mourns a lost land from the past.'' Tamar Yoseloff''In Marginalia, I discovered riffs on Utrillo, Hamlet and The Erl-King, but also found Woodbines, anoraks, Wimpey and 'a wad of orange Thermogene' - in a time when art itself can seem marginalised, or used only as a quick gateway to another social conversation, these are poems first and foremost - 'nothing's beyond her scope...' '' Matthew Caley

A new century dawns, and Rome's frontiers are again in turmoil. The Year is A.D. 105. The Emperor Trajan is calling in troops from around the empire to secure Dacia's rich mines of iron, copper, and gold. Britannia's forts are left under strength and the north is once more in flames as the tribesmen sense weakness in Rome's armies. The Ninth Legion, based at Eboracvm, must once more bear the brunt of the rebellion when, as the ageing Cethan Lamh-fada observed, 'They're having another damned go at it!'Now settled in Brigantia and living far longer than he ever wanted, Cethan finds his family once more straddling both sides of Rome's ambition. As two of his sons guide the fate of Rome's legions, two more try their utmost to hold them at bay. Set against the uprising od A.D. 105 when Rome abandoned most of the north leaving Agricola's old forts in ruins, the story completes the saga of Cethan Lamh-fada and his people, and their unending struggle to remain free.

Red Tower: A Mouse's Tail tells the story of a family of mice who have lived in and around the tower since it was built. Brieanna, a young mouse, travels back in time to witness some of the most important times in the tower's history.This short book is designed to give younger residents and visitors some idea of the historical background to a well loved feature of the city walls. It is an illustrated history of the strange brick bastion which was at one time in the middle of a marsh.

William Dickenson, man of business to the earl of Shrewsbury, knows that raising the rents on farmholds will ease his master's cash-flow problem. But Lord Shrewsbury imposes such huge increases on one manor, Glossopdale in the Derbyshire Peak District, that none of the tenants can pay. "Black Harry" Botham, of Storth Farm in the Glossopdale hamlet of Simmondley, knows the courts won't oppose those rent increases; Lord Shrewsbury is too powerful. So accompanied by a few followers he walks to London, determined to complain to the Queen's Privy Council.Will this desperate venture cost him his family, his freedom, his livelihood - even his life? Told partly by Tom "Spiderlegs" Booth, Harry's brother-in-law and close friend, and partly from William Dickenson's perspective, Black Harry recounts one of the most remarkable David and Goliath episodes in Elizabethan England.

Injured Ethelred the Unready is one of only three elite carrier pigeons trained to undertake two-way flights. Konstantin von Essen is the traumatized 14-year-old son of Generalfeldmarschall Dieter von Essen, the Commander for Operations in the North Zone of Occupied France. Eleven-year-old Dottie Latymer is evacuated from London to Surrey where her Anglo-American identity, together with her affected American accent, makes her a target for bullies. Rose Clarke, Dottie's only friend, has a violent father and a mother struggling with mental ill-health. Together, they must overcome their personal obstacles to supply MI5 with game-changing intelligence.

In her debut collection In|Between Angela Arnold examines our internal states, the landscapes of minds both 'normal' and unusual - while in the second part of the book she looks at how these disparate minds relate to each other, (mis)understand each other, are close or distant, loving or abusive, from the private sphere to the wider social context.The author has lived in seven different European countries, including all parts of the UK, and has made a living as a garden designer and artist, amongst many other things. She loves languages, speaks a few and is currently learning Welsh. She is a campaigner, a Quaker, a lover of nature and big skies and is now settled in North Wales.

A survey vessel trawls up a man's body in the Outer Hebrides and ship's engineer Helen finds a compelling green stone in his pocket. On Rannoch Moor, her cousin Malcolm, a local ranger, is visited by a strange woman. She goes missing, and he too finds a green stone. The cousins have stumbled upon a multi-faceted conspiracy involving the high-tech company Fundamantal Forces who are promising limitless green energy from under the moor. It's soon clear that deeper, perhaps darker forces are at play. Helen and Malcolm have twelve days to learn to cooperate, piece the mystery together, and save the multiverse.Equinox brings together procedural thriller, Scottish myth, many-worlds science and family drama. Set in the present-day Scottish Highlands and Islands it has the verve and imagination of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, melding themes of trust, loyalty and memory.

2022 brought us the mad hubris and economically catastrophic fallout of the 50 day British prime minister; the monstrosities of Putin; climate catastrophe; a new pandemic of infection predominantly affecting school children; poverty, cold, inflation, be-leagured public sector workers forced after more than a decade of austerity to impoverish themselves further by withdrawing their labour, grief 'tap-tap-tapping/on your window' and (as I write) temperatures which obviate the need to plug in the freezer you can't afford to power up. What better way to warm the cockles of your pining heart, and your chilblained toes, than Dream Catcher 46?Throw another pile of un-opened bills on the fire; top up your hot water-bottle; grab a cat or two to bulk out the blanket over your knees, and luxuriate in the season's creative offerings. Indulge in some arm-chair travel (whether on the Victoria tube line, or overseas); find solace in the language of flowers (maybe even be inspired to set up a society for the preservation of weeds, among other persecuted majorities); find the hidden depths in an artist's model. Are you after the respectability of matching chairs, or fired up by memories of love? Do you believe corpses are the most reliable witnesses, or are you holding out for the perfect toast topping? Whether you are wanting to end it all or hoping for a new beginning, you will find something to interest, amuse, horrify, or inspire.In this issue we also luxuriate in the realism of artist David Finnigan

Joe thinks the dog next door is trying to kill him. Willow didn't mean to nearly kill him. She just needs to tell Joe about three important things. But how can you make your brother understand important things when you live with the neighbour these days... and you are a labradoodle? Only once Joe believes that Willow is his reincarnated sister Emily can he get to grips with some big problems in his life... AND go on a dangerous rescue mission with his furry sibling.A story about love, loss, dogs, rescue, estate agents and scratch cards.

Clint's poetry uses geology, landscape and family history to weave together an emotional response to the places he knows and loves in the East Riding and North Yorkshire. Walking the coastline is a cathartic experience. Here you'll explore beautiful paces with hidden histories and legends, find wrecks on the beach or catch a glimpse of student life as a geologist. Published for the first time are sequences of poems about the River Hull and four generations responding to the lockdowns we endured. Clint is passionate about the environment and improving our access to the countryside; these themes reoccur throughout the collection.

Well known in his native Tyneside, Harry's best selling Northern Lights, the most borrowed book in Middlesborough Library, took aim at the appalling treatment of the North East.there is an england [note the lack of capitals] widens the scope of Harry's pen to the current state of the country. In his own words:"A country with a parliament dating back over 800 years: a country which boasts a long line of engineers, inventors and pioneers who between them nigh-on made the modern world as we know it. Yet it was also a country which - to the eyes of many outsiders - seemed hell-bent on a level of self-harm which would previously never have been believed possible.""...like a spark in a furnace" - Wendy Pratt,Northern Soul - about Northern Lights

Set in Ireland in 1650, The Story of the Pirate Queen takes as its subject the life of the Irish clan chief and pirate Grace O'Malley - or Grainne ni Mhaille - who spent her life fighting the forces of Elizabeth 1 before sailing up the Thames for a summit meeting with the English queen. In the book, Grace's ten-year-old great great granddaughter Maude is being told the story of her ancestor by her tutor, Catherine, on the eve of her betrothal to a much older man in an arranged marriage. As Catherine gradually learns why Maude has been summoned to a castle at the edge of the Atlantic, her tales of Grace's rebellion and bravery take on more urgency. But can Maude resist her father's will? What will she make of Grace's meeting with Queen Elizabeth? And is Catherine endangering them both?Interwoven into these narratives is an extract from a play Catherine has written about the meeting of Grace and Elizabeth. This turns a straightforward pirate story into an exploration of the function of fiction itself: what are stories for? Can - and do - they belong to anyone?'Lively, lyrical and engrossing, The Pirate Queen brings to life the tale of the Irish Boudicca, a fearless leader whose story is used by a rebellious governess to inspire her pupil to resist a forced marriage. I found it irresistible.' - Miranda Seymour, Biographer'...A cracking story which seamlessly spans the decades.' - Dr Gillian Kenny, Historian, Trinity College Dublin 'A compelling and vividly realised story of solidarity, courage and resistance... a story about the power of stories' - Fran Lock, Poet

Otto lives with his uncle, an ambitious mechanic and creator of mechanical animals that live in the orangery. when a break-in occurs and many parrots are stolen, the police blame Florence, a street child, who sits outside the orangery and draws. Otto and Florence work together to solve the crime, encountering pirates and an arch villain along the way.A rollicking steam adventure with mechanical parrots and a clever monkey.