Issue Ten of the Fly on the Wall Press magazine series plunges us under the sea. Sixteen international writers and artists explore pull of the deep. Women fall in love with the tides; whales dance for joy. Some creatures grow sea urchin hearts, whilst others eat human hearts raw…

Contributors:

Marcelle Newbold, Carl Alexandersson, Cheryl Bryne, Eleonora Balsano, Elizabeth Gibson, Martina Bani, Diana Sanders (also cover artist) Hannah Brown, Kathryn O'Driscoll, Rupert Locke, Gerry Stewart, Lorraine Carey, Sarah Wallis, Zoe Green, Helen Kennedy and Satterday Shaw.

Samples:

Rottingdean

Helen Kennedy

There’s a body lying on the groyne

wrapped in bladder wrack- difficult to sex.

The sea drags at the rim of gravel

I walk along the under cliff, check out the tide line.

Sometimes our identity is transitory,

exposed to the elements.

returned from the sea.

The price of freedom

Eleonora Balsano

I was born at the bottom of the ocean, and there I will die.

A king’s daughter, murdered by a king’s son, a man who sailed the seven seas, yet he’s afraid of depths.

I didn’t know the word for light, I never needed it in the deep. My father made me out of sand and poured seafoam through my veins. Eels rocked me to sleep in the faint glow of jellyfish and seahorses nibbled at my toes in the morning, gently bringing me back from my dreams.

The Weight of Water

Zoe Green

No accounting for the physiology of it, but lying prone in the water with a mask stuck to her face, she couldn’t cry - as if the mask sealed the tears in. As if the Red Sea had already saltwater enough. ‘It’s impossible to be unhappy snorkeling, ’ Steve had said that morning, ‘right?’, a shadow of desperation in his voice, the skin pegged between his brows. How he’d like her to be happy - though a snarky part of her wondered if that was for his own sake rather than hers.