After a busy term of competitions and workshops we’re so proud to introduce the eighth issue of From the Lighthouse, and our second ever in print! It’s a special milestone in the journey of our magazine, and affirms how From the Lighthouse has become such a home to all kinds of literary talent.
A home is a state of being we carry with us, whether that may be a feeling, a language, a relationship, a book, or a name – all of which have been written about in this fantastic issue. But the idea of home is not only metaphorical, an especially pertinent point given the extremity of the housing crisis our generation faces, as well as the looming loss of the natural habitat we can all call home.
This issue balances reality and escapism with true talent, and we hope that you find joy and hope in reading these inspiring pieces of work.
Happy Reading!
From the Lighthouse Team
Letters from the Senior Editors
Anjali Mulcock, Editor-in-Chief
From being a contributor and performer in my first year, to Deputy Editor last year, to leading the magazine this year, From the Lighthouse has become fundamental to my experience at Durham. It’s been an honour watching the scope and ambition of the magazine grow, and to say that I’m proud to be publishing this issue both online and in print is an understatement. It’s been fantastic to see so many new faces at our workshops and on the list of contributors, highlighting the growth of our community. As always, thank you to our writers and to my wonderful team, for their talent, hard work, and dedication. It’s been a labour of love, and I hope you find as much enjoyment in reading this issue as we have creating it. Spanning from the minutiae of breath in Esme Bell’s ‘That Home Smell’, to buildings in Ava Piper’s ‘White Walls’, to the earth in Lauren Gapper’s ‘Our Natural Home’, to space in Laura Eichelmann’s ‘The Smugglers from Berg-27’, the poetry, fiction, drama and essays of this issue have phenomenal depth and range. From the Lighthouse really is a literary home, and it’s a pleasure to invite you inside with this issue!
Mia Hyde, Deputy Editor
Reading through our submissions for this issue, I’m reminded of James Baldwin’s perspicacity: ‘perhaps home is not a place, but an irrevocable condition.’ Amidst perpetual fluctuation in what literally constitutes my home, reading and writing always suffuses me with a sense of being at home: a haven of the imagination. My first term as deputy editor of FTL has epitomised such homeliness. Working with Anjali, Rory, and the rest of the team to celebrate Durham’s literary flair has been a privilege; this community of such artistic passion has been integral to my Durham experience. Words are what house our emotions, and our contributions in this issue are no exception. I encourage you to unchain your emotions to be free to be touched by the sensitivity that our contributors to this issue have syphoned into writing. I hope that FTL will grow to be cherished as an irrevocable condition of homeliness for more and more Durham students as an oasis of creative talent
Rory McAlpine, Deputy Editor
What is home? That was the question we asked with this issue’s theme, inspired by the migration of students back to Durham, moving from one home to another. The theme was interpreted beyond bricks and buildings with our contributors’ brilliantly diverse pieces. Having joined From the Lighthouse this year as Deputy Editor-in-chief I am so proud to see this first issue come together and even prouder of the work that went into it. Behind every publication is a passionate team of individuals and this years From the Lighthouse team have proved themselves to be just that. I hope while reading this issue you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together and it allows you to reflect on a much more nuanced meaning of home. I look forward to seeing the magazine continue to grow, ensuring it continues to be a home for Durham’s impressive literary community.
ISSUE EIGHT: SECTIONS
With many thanks to Amy Nugent, our wonderful illustrator
Letters from the Fiction Editors
Nicole Welch - Fiction Editor
I’m someone who is always slightly missing home in some way. Whether I’m trying to replicate my mum’s recipes, just to smell her exact pasta sauce cooking in the kitchen. Or whether I’m subconsciously playing my brother’s favourite songs, just to feel him around me. And I can already foresee this time next year, when I have left Durham, I’ll call out to my housemates to show them something funny, only to realise that we don’t all live together anymore. Such is the temporality of the home - the realisation that sometimes it is not encapsulated by a place, but by the people who fill it. I think what I love most about this issue of ft. Lighthouse is seeing how immensely personal ‘home’ is to every submission we’ve had the joy of reading. It has been a pleasure to read these tremendously creative takes on this theme and I hope reading these pieces gives you a small shiver of home, too.
Matthew Ainley - Fiction Editor
Working on this issue has been a thought-provoking and gratifying experience! Nicole and I had a great time going through all of the submissions and reading the myriad ways the theme was interpreted – the standard of writing this term has been incredible! Home was explored and analysed through everything, from distinct moments of change, such as moving to a new city, to the small and symbolic, such as a pair of shoes. These pieces bring forth a festive feeling of Home that truly resonates around winter – this cosy, calm time of the year. We hope you enjoy!
Letters from the Non-Fiction Editors
Lauren Gapper - Non-Fiction Editor
With the flurry of new beginnings that come along with Michaelmas term, I think the notion of home lends itself suitably to university students of all years, with some leaving home for the first time, others settling into and creating new homes away from colleges, and few reflecting on how Durham has become a place to call home and where they might next reside once they fly the nest. And yet, whilst this theme is undeniably evocative for its symbols of comfort, safety, and tranquillity, the non-fiction section has not shied away from exposing conversations about the current socio-political and environmental climates in which 'home' - in both its local and global sense - has become a byword for precariousness and instability. From the current Durham University housing crisis (and cost of living crisis in general) to the recent unravelling of COP-27 and the increasingly alarming threats of the climate emergency, the conversations between Lorenzo and I have been nothing short of thought-provoking, to such an extent that we have been left pondering whether Heidegger's poetic dwelling is perhaps the place we ought to be, after all...
Lorenzo Roma - Non-Fiction Editor
Being a Non-Fiction Editor is such an enriching experience. The magazine has allowed me to meet brilliant people, and helping the team to come up with new ideas and organise workshops has been a pleasure. I’ve had the opportunity to hear brilliant ideas and pieces of writing while witnessing how other people think through the process of creating a written piece of work. I found reviewing and editing pieces of writing a demanding experience, but the magazine is so welcoming - it’s been incredibly rewarding and I look forward to reading the next issue’s submissions!
Letters from the Drama and Poetry Editors
Max Brandau - Drama Editor
This issue’s theme of ‘home’ was unique in its simultaneous universality and specificity. For the drama section, ‘home’ was especially rewarding in its range of possibilities; a home can be conceived as a physical setting on stage, but may also be explored through specific emotions, experiences, and objects. In our writing workshop this term, we got to see impressive work from participants as we examined the theme through vocabulary associations, visual cues, and physical objects. I was very pleased with the quality and variety of the pieces both produced during the workshops and received as submissions, and I feel they truly demonstrate the potential of the theme and dramatic writing in general. This was my first issue that I got to work on as a drama editor, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading and reviewing submissions, as well as working together with the authors. I look forward to our future issues and to see even more of our student’s talent flourish through this magazine.
Talia Jacobs - Poetry Editor
With the start of a new academic year, that burgeoning fear of new beginnings and a separation from familiar comforts always seems to buzz incessantly in the backgrounds of many students’ first-term experiences. The theme of ‘Home’, therefore, seems like the most natural of places to start, and I have been thrilled by the huge range of responses the idea of ‘home’ has brought about in poetic exploration. Both physical reality and emotional symbol, this issue’s theme has been formidably and excitingly taken up by our contributors; from the physical descriptions of houses deserted and new years dramatized in our poetry workshop held in the quickly shortening days of a frosty mid-November, to the metaphorical bursts of alternating light and love, and hardship and anxiety accompanied with complex notions of what ‘home’ really is. It has been a wonderfully fulfilling experience to be able to properly engage with the literary talent of the Durham community and working with the FTL team has been so rewarding! We truly hope you enjoy this collection and find in it some homely comforts and exciting beginnings.