Edited by Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers.
Picador, 2004

To celebrate New Writing 12, we created this website for readers and teachers. It features selected texts, grouped into 12 themed sections. 

So start your journey into New Writing 12 by choosing from writing which is concerned with storytelling (Tell me a story), a sense of belonging (I am what I am), explosive secrets from the past (Secrets) and the pain caused by family relationships (The ties that bind us). The list of themes also includes texts that explore the truth about love and our need to understand the past.

There is poetry, short stories, extracts from published and soon-to-be published novels, and non-fiction pieces.

The Way We Were Two pieces vividly recreating the past. Hilda Bernstein's essay Room 226 describes part of the author's life in South Africa under apartheid.   Matthew Davey's Waving at Trains tells a story of family love, deeply felt but never expressed.

Mind Over Matter Two pieces about reasonable ideas taken to extreme conclusions. ⦥uro;?Hunger⦥uro;? by Jane Stevenson is a polemic about the gender bias of our responses to extreme behaviour. ⦥uro;?Minimal⦥uro;? by Maria McCann is a story about a relationship pared down to the point where you wonder if murder will be next.

Tell Me the Truth About Love Two fictional pieces on modern love in London. Romance sparks between an ⦥uro;?arty⦥uro;? older man and a young maths student in Diran Adebayo⦥uro;?s novel extract ⦥uro;?Come back, we⦥uro;?ll do some calculus⦥uro;?. And ⦥uro;?Epic Slinky⦥uro;?, by Sophie Woolley, tells the story of several reckless encounters one Saturday night.

Best Laid Plans Three pieces on how things rarely work out in life as we plan them. In ‘Visiting Time’, a short story by Emma Brockes, a bereaved father plans a murder but finds a sweeter form of revenge. An artist dreams of a chain of milkshake parlours across the north of England in a story called ‘Milk’ by Gerard Woodward, but at what personal cost does his dream come true?   Tamar Yoseloff’s poem ‘Weekend’ evokes a disappointment that colours a relationship.

Family Matters Three reflections on how distant we can become from those who are closest to us. In her essay ‘Only’, Alex Clark explores being an only child of only-child parents. The hero of Helon Habila’s novel extract ‘Harmattan’ yearns to leave his small town in Nigeria with its strong family ties. In his poem ‘Wildlife’, Alan Jenkins describes the transformation of his childhood garden as his parents' age.

That Was Then Two pieces looking at adolescent experiences through adult eyes. In Nicolette Hardee⦥uro;?s story ⦥uro;?Wordperfect⦥uro;?, Jennifer plans a reunion with a childhood pen friend. Sukhdev Sandhu⦥uro;?s essay ⦥uro;?One-ah, Two-ah⦥uro;? is really a love letter to his parents who came to settle in England from the Punjab.

Private Passions Four pieces exploring female sexuality from a woman⦥uro;?s perspective. ⦥uro;?Talking About Love: Dear Ella⦥uro;? is a monologue by Nick Barlay in which an agony aunt reveals how much she is in need of some good advice herself. ⦥uro;?Flat Earth⦥uro;? by Jill Dawson is a story that evokes an intense physical passion from the past that can never be matched in the present. Vicki Feaver⦥uro;?s poems are both based on objects of female fascination: ⦥uro;?Gorilla⦥uro;? and ⦥uro;?The Gun⦥uro;?.

Sense of Place Three couples walk in contrasting landscapes where the physical setting is crucial to the atmosphere of the piece. In ⦥uro;?As Far as You Can Go⦥uro;?, an extract from Lesley Glaister⦥uro;?s new novel, a British couple are lost in the searing heat of the Australian outback. Bill Broady⦥uro;?s short story ⦥uro;?In a Mist⦥uro;? is set on the Yorkshire moors, transformed into something unfamiliar by the thick wet mist. In Sarah Maguire⦥uro;?s intriguing poem ⦥uro;?The Foot Tunnel⦥uro;? a couple walk through a tunnel under the Thames in London in a recurring dream.

I Am What I Am Identity and belonging are explored by two contrasting autobiographical pieces.  Patience Agbabi confronts issues of colour and upbringing in a passionate poem ‘Seeing Red’. In ‘Where Do We live?’ Ian Sansom writes with insight and humour about moving his family from London to a small town in Northern Ireland.

Secrets Two pieces featuring explosive secrets from the past. Glenn Patterson’s new novel That Which Was (published by Hamish Hamilton, 2004) deals with history, memory and brain-washing in Northern Ireland. This extract introduces us to a stranger with disturbing and maybe unreliable memories. ‘Man and Boy’ by Patience Agbabi is in the form of a dramatic monologue: a haunting poem full of unanswered questions between father and son, centring on the revelation of a dark family secret.

Tell Me a Story Two pieces set in Africa explore the nature of storytelling.  Julian Gough⦥uro;?s novel extract, ⦥uro;?The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble⦥uro;?, tells a tragic and funny story of financial boom and bust in Somalia. In ⦥uro;?According to Mwangi⦥uro;?, a story by Binyavanga Wainaina set in Nairobi, Kenya, we meet a talented storyteller who entrances the local children. But what happens when the children grow up?

The Ties that Bind Us Two reflections on family relationships and the pain they can cause. In Julia Brosnan⦥uro;?s piece ⦥uro;?Give Him My Love⦥uro;?, a young woman struggles to understand how her brother⦥uro;?s death will change life for everyone in the family.   Maggie O⦥uro;?Farrell explores the rivalry and resentment between two sisters in extracts from ⦥uro;?The Distance Between Us⦥uro;? (published by Review, 2004).

Contributors
Diran Adebayo, Patience Agbabi, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Nick Barlay, Hilda Bernstein, Bill Broady, Emma Brockes, Julia Brosnan, Wayne Burrows, Alex Clark, Fred D'Aguiar, Matthew Davey, Jill Dawson, Sasha Dugdale, Vicki Feaver, Adele Geras, Lesley Glaister, Julian Gough, Helon Habila, Gideon Haigh, Nicolette Hardee, Alan Jenkins, Tim Liardet, Sarah Maguire, Maria McCann, David Morley, Patrick Neate, Maggie O'Farrell, Alice Oswald, Glenn Patterson, Sukhdev Sandhu, Ian Sansom, Amanda Smyth, Jane Stevenson, Royston Swarbrooke, Matthew Sweeney, Barbara Trapido, Binyavanga Wainaina, Gerard Woodward, Sophie Woolley, Tamar Yoseloff

On Editing New Writing
Editors of New Writing 12, Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers, have a retrospective muse on the selection process, the notion of post-post-colonial writing, the politics and trade-offs involved in editing, and literary envy.
Click here to read the article...

Introduction to New Writing 12
By Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers

What makes us fall in love with someone? It might be the way that he or she smiles, or speaks, or walks, or eats, or holds a glass, or sees the world. Whatever it is, we'll find it hard to put into words. And it won't be something we go looking for, but something that catches us by surprise - unexpected, inimitable, unique.

As with love, so with literature. When we began to edit this year's New Writing anthology, we did't know what it was we were after. But as we discovered it - as each of us came across pieces which made us say YES! - so an understanding of what we all liked became possible. In particular, we found ourselves responding to voices: imagined voices, authentic (seemingly tape-recorded) voices, voices which come at us from unfamiliar places, voices which shock and move. If there is any common thread to this volume, beyond that of exciting, good, new writing, it is to do with the skilful use and exploration of voice. From the interior monologues musings in Nick Barlay's virtuoso modern love triptych, to the crazed, milk-obsessed world of Gerard Woodward's narrator, to the brittle and frighteningly empty voices of Sophie Woolley's 'Slinky', and to Binyavanga Wainaina's glorious spoof on authentic voices in Kenyan 'litterachuwa', here are tales which aren't just told but are told in a powerfully original way.

When we emailed each other with our enthusiasms, we usually abbreviated the name of this anthology to NW12, which sounds like a London postcode. And traditionally the New Writing anthologies have showcased poetry, fiction and essays by British writers, many of them based in London or its surrounds. But this time we wanted to spread the net wider, not out of some vague notion of inclusiveness, but because we knew much of the best writing in English today comes from outside the UK. So we travel, in NW12, from Belfast to South America, from Hoxton to Nigeria, and from Ilkley to - in Julian Gough's wickedly twisted skit on market economics - Somalia.

We also wanted to feature new work by older as well as younger writers, believing that - contrary to the mores of much contemporary publishing - many authors improve with age and experience. The current prejudice against older writers is so insidious that we're fearful of putting a name to our less youthful contributors; suffice it to say that one is an octogenarian and a number of others are the wrong side of 50. Their work was selected for its energy, insight and skill, and for the excitement it generated in us; in the same way as the work by younger writers excited us. This year the UK has seen the promotion of 20 novelists under 40, in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists anthology. We're happy to have had a broader brief: to highlight new writing in English by writers of all ages and nationalities.

It was no great surprise to discover, when we arrived at our final selection, that half the best pieces were written by women. Since gender in no way influenced selection, it's almost embarrassing to mention this. But in a literary world where shortlists for literary prizes regularly feature twice as many men as women, and where poetry anthologies including half a dozen women out of fifty contributors aren't yet a distant memory, this selection is glowing evidence of the equal talents of today's female and male writers.

There are a number of pieces of non-fiction in the anthology. But with the exception of Gideon Haigh's reappraisal of C.L.R. James and Jane Stevenson's 'Hunger', these aren't what one would think of as 'essays' - and even those two are so passionately argued that they resist the label. Witty, incisive autobiographical writing is now part of the cultural landscape, as is shown here by Alex Clark's meditation on being an only child, or Sukhdev Sandhu's revisiting of 1970s England from a provincial British Asian perspective. Other pieces occupy the dangerous territory between fiction and non-fiction - the vengeful anguish of Emma Brockes's bereaved father is frighteningly authentic.

We're also pleased there's a lot of humour in this collection. The graver the subject matter, the livelier the jokes. Glenn Patterson's only-too-real Belfast; Julia Brosnan's grief-stricken account of a brother's death; Royston Swarbrooke's sepulchral south London; the poems of Vicki Feaver, Tim Liardet and Sasha Dugdale: all are proof that solemn subject matter need not preclude (indeed often demands) lightness and irony.

Several of the voices in this anthology are new. But the concerns are perennial. Love, loss, sex, hunger, laughter, justice, a sense of place: the seven great themes - and the Seven Ages - are all here. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we've enjoyed putting it together.