New writing
Fiction and prose by established and emerging authors. Send your poetry or fiction to New Writing at skryfwerk@litnet.co.za to be considered for publication on LitNet.
Please note that work previously published in print or on any online media platform will not be considered for selection.
Boris Pasternak
2020-02-12"We all had feathers. Then we all had wings. Then we were shipped back home to our physical address."
Giacomo Leopardi
2020-02-05“I am Emily Dickinson’s winter revisited in Amherst-land. I am so much more aware of age and getting older than I have ever been.”
Clarissa
2020-01-28“When I’m with Lewis, I think of you; when he yells at me, I think of you; when he hits me, I think of you, Malcolm ...”
Of sin and dreams
2020-01-20“He would never enter the hellhole of a bookmaker’s betting room. So, he would never see how amicably people like old Jonathan were received in the betting room ...”
Broken gangster child
2019-12-12“I think you changed a part of me.
I think I am a little more gangster, too.”
Short and bad
2019-12-03“It’s now been more than two years since I started, and, by now, I’ve written well over 100 000 words. Some of those words are good; most are bad. It doesn’t matter. It absolutely does not matter. What matters is the joy ...”
The sad fact is beautiful, trauma is just like fire, and giving regret the once-over
2019-11-20“You’re mine, love, but
you belong to another, and as a man
you belong to the world.”
You did not take her Honour
2019-11-12“She walks with her head
Higher than yours.
She carries no shame.”
All the king's horses
2019-11-12“Harry’s burgeoning social life left Sue lonely and angry. In an effort to pick up the pieces, she had a makeover and tried to reconnect with him. She popped into his office to collect him for dinner after work, but found the office deserted.”
Where they can’t hurt me and Sylvia Plath
2019-11-06“They can’t hurt our words,
Sylvia. Let us dance, then, in the arms
of our lovers, and our friends”
Disgust
2019-11-06“Mr Hicks cursed and stormed out into the reception room and said, sir, what is the problem, sir? He summed the stranger up and said, I know your sort. I have been taken in by your sort before, and then he ordered Fiona to call Sergeant Marais.”
Theoretical cartography
2019-10-31“And, beyond those continents, in a tiny boat sailing off beyond the map, were – theoretically, for a short while – the two of us.”
Regret
2019-10-23“A fleeting stubbornness. She had always been reticent regarding her personal matters, and so did not enjoy the manner in which the Thought was prying.”