Koestler Fiction Visuals

Digital Accompaniments for some of this year's best short fiction

I prefer to devour a short story in a single sitting to take it in properly. Some of them might take you along into the tale from start to finish, so you become familiar with the narrator/writer/characters (Erwin James is this kind of author – it’s like being a kid and sitting on Granddad’s lap as he reels off an engaging saga). Others might lose you in the first paragraph but leave you with a single lasting image or impression come the last.
Prison writing, eh? The bad are very bad, but the good are awesome. I get the feeling that some of the KOESTLER entries were written besides cell bunk beds by individuals screaming out their intent quietly through a pen onto the page, tight lipped, soul burning. They are trapped in a place (mentally and physically) where their best option is to let the ink flow, full steam ahead, with turmoil and/or passion on tap and enough time to channel it into something constructive. Something talented. Something meaningful.
Prisoners and secure patients are forgotten about in society. Lock them up, shut them away, out of sight, out of mind. That’s how we like it. This is them reminding us that they are still there, in a structured, disciplined, creative fashion. They are given an annual opportunity by Koestler to dump their artistic voices out into the airwaves and I have privileged access on the other end of a direct line.
Forget Dickens and Shakespeare. This is the kind of dynamic stuff that I’d much rather be reading. People hurling their voices at you from whatever cycle of oppression or retribution they happen to be in; desperate voices, calm voices, demanding to be heard, coated in adjectives, sprinkled with verbs.

“Writing is all I have, a lament and a boast.”

William Orlando

...so impressed with the top stories...had to arrange these visuals to accompany them...live on a little longer...

Art Till Death