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Dear Reader,
Litro, the magazine for the general reader dedicated to short stories, ideas, and the people who make them- and those just starting to put pen to paper, would like to thank all our readers new and old who wrote to us last month – some where shameful personal plugs, some due to various Acts of law– have had to be omitted, though we liked them nonetheless but on the whole a big thumbs up from you all, you can read some of these on pages 11 & 12.
This month in Litro #148 we explore the notion of what Going Home – means to us. Is it a familiar physical space? A refuge? A feeling? A state of mind? Or is home actually to be found in another human being – maybe your partner, your parents? How do you know when you have found it?
The concept of home is locked in our memories. Continuing changes we experience in life makes it infeasible to remove memories of one’s past. Especially when you have been absent from the place you call home- the place you was raised- then you return some years later. That home becomes a home – because of the shared memories of events- the laughter’s the tears, conversations, news- that took place with family and friends. It’s these shared experiences that gives a sense of meaning to the place we call home.
When you leave the home you was raised and grew up in, that home is missed. Forgotten at a certain extent. Remembered every time someone relates something to it.
Our cover art this month is ‘Rising’ by American self taught artist Jeanie Tomanek – ‘Rising’ focuses on the idea of death and the final journey to wherever that leads, often the thought of going home.
The collection of stories this month though all told through different lenses, all give tales of feeling at home, of discovering / rediscovering home giving varying degrees of answers to what home can mean to us.
We open the issue with A Mother of My Own, by Lucy Kellet, a story in which a young adoptee ponders her true identity- in-doing so she realises her home is life that has been created by her adopted parents, finding her home in these parents.
In GC Perry’s, A New Place on The Map, a father re-visits his fractured family and finds his home in the family he is separated from.
Kevin Baker takes us to the Far East with his essay Chinese Hamburgers, the smells and bustle of the Chinese markets the familiar physical space gives the character his meaning of home.
Inspired by a BBC documentary following a year in the life of a container ship, Patricia Morris’ I Heart Containers, tells the story of these well-travelled containers and the untold stories and secrets they contain.
Brad Ellis’s Listings, tells the tale of a couple desperately seeking the perfect home, told through the eyes of an estate agent.
In Mendacities, Michael Cohen gives a dark tale of a woman who imagines murdering her husband and reveals the paths our minds travel to find our way home.
Polish writer, Grazyna Plebanek’, personal essay Going Home –tells of Plebanek’s time spent between the place she calls home Brussels and the country she was born Poland.
Finally in our author conversation this month-well not so much a conversation but a quick fire round of four questions- is with award winning Korean / US writer Steph Cha.
Wishing you all a happy and pleasant journey home for the holidays – where ever home is for you!
Until 2016,
Editor in Chief,
Eric Akoto
