From fragile identities to monstered invasions, from migration to metamorphosis, twenty writers explore the ‘Aliens and Otherness’ theme. Some express a deep-rooted yearning to belong. Others capture the horror of mutation. On planetary surfaces or more familiar terrains, these Severed Souls expose tensions between Self and Them
The Contributors
Abida Akram is a 62 year old retiree. She has been writing poetry and very short fiction for a good few years but only recently started sending work out. She had two poems on an immigrant’s experience published in a Victoriana Press anthology.
Alex Harwood found an old typewriter in the loft when he was ten and clattered out a poem about a dragon who liked shiny things. Decades later, he’s still writing about things that don’t exist but really should.
Emma Lee’s publications include The Significance of a Dress and Ghosts in the Desert. She co-edited Over Land, Over Sea, was Poetry Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, and reviews for magazines and blogs at emmalee1.wordpress.com
Born in Scotland, Ivan Richardson studied Mechanical Engineering at Leicester University (UK). Ivan is also a member of Leicester Writers club which helped him perfect his writing skills. He holds a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon do.
James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He is the author of four widely acclaimed collections of poetry. He was nominated for The Best of the Net’ 2019, and is a Pushcart Prize 2021 Nominee.
Jennifer Moore is a previous winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest. Her psychological thrillers The Woman Before and The Wilderness Retreat are published by HQ Digital.
J.K. Fulton grew up at Scottish lighthouses and now lives in Leicester. His stories have appeared in Shoreline of Infinity, Leicester Writes Short Story Anthology, Best of British Science Fiction 2018 and Dark Scotland. His novels include The Wreck of the Argyll.
Joanne Shaw lives with her husband in a Derbyshire village. She taught before leaving to do a PhD in literature at Loughborough University. She has a published book about Samuel Beckett’s prose works.
Katherine Franklin has been writing fiction since the age of 8 but spends most of her time these days writing code. Despite (and perhaps because of) having a physics degree, she prefers writing the softer, fantastical side of science fiction.
Liz Byfield spent most of her life in Education, initially as a primary school teacher specialising in science then as a Literacy Specialist. She has also been an archery coach and a complementary therapist. She is married with two sons.
Mary Byrne is an artist as well as a writer. In 2019, she won the Leicester Writes Short Story Competition. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the H.E. Bates Short Story Prize, and in 2021, Highly Commended in Frome Festival Short Story Competition.
Michele Witthaus is based in the UK. Her pamphlet, From a Sheltered Place, was published in August 2020 by Wild Pressed Books. She was the 2020 winner of Leicester Writers’ Club’s Ena Young Award for Poetry.
Monica Wang has fiction in several publication. She won The Sunlight Press’ 2020 fiction contest. Born in Taichung, Taiwan, she grew up in Taipei and Vancouver, Canada, and now writes in Amsterdam or Exeter or wherever.
Phillip Irving is a teacher and writer. He’s a Leicester Writers’ Club and Leicester Speculators member. When not writing or marking he can be found at home with his cat playing video games or in his local, which his cat is also known to frequent.
Rob Bray lives and writes in Leicestershire. A member of Leicester Writers’ Club, he has had work published in The Best of East Midlands Writing anthology and two stories shortlisted in the Aurora short story competition.
Sam Parr grew up in North-West Leicestershire, in countryside man-made and wild. He is fascinated with the fantastical and the mundane of the day-to-day, and writes about these in the breathing spaces of his life.
Sarah Davies is a writer who likes to dabble in the dark arts of spoken word and stand-up, having performed regularly at the Leicester Comedy Festival. She has published two books; Lord of the Pies and The Last Chance Salon.
Sarah Fearn is dyslexic and was told as child that she would never learn to read or write. She now has a degree in English, American Studies and Creative Writing from the University of Kent. She co-edited the RASP anthology Everything is Spherical.
Teika Marija Smits is a UK-based writer, illustrator and freelance editor. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Russian Doll, was published by Indigo Dreams Publishing. A fan of all things fae, she is delighted by the fact that Teika means fairy tale in Latvian.
From Anglesey, of English and Russian-Ashkenazi extraction, Yevgeny Salisbury is a transman who only rarely writes explicitly on gender. He has had short stories in three anthologies and was once longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize.
Space Cat Press 