In their introduction to New Writing 14, its editors, Lavinia Greenlaw and Helon Habila, describe the anthology as a smoke signal, ‘a way of showing the world what’s going on inside this language’. So what does the book as a whole say to you about writing in English? These monthly pages are written to help you make up your mind.

As you get started, here are some opening suggestions as to the anthology’s most popular topics, and then a short explanation of the pages’ approach.

New Writing 14 could be said to suggest that English-speaking writers – like many others now and through the ages – are not quite ‘at home’ in their world. Many contributors have a sharp eye for the uncanny, the unsettling or even the downright disturbing. Several writers imagine disquieting meetings with alien species, or with people formerly seen as alien. In other contributions, people of different races, ages, genders or classes meet, sometimes to good, sometimes to tragic effect. Conflict and civil disturbance are often in the air.

Another striking theme is the search for origins. Where do we come from and how do we see our identity? Often the quest is domestic, as in the very first extract by Esther Freud. Elsewhere characters try to make sense of a city or even a nation. Most harrowing is the writing that depicts those who have lost touch with their beginnings: the stateless, illegal immigrants, those who have been dispossessed.

The editors say that a high proportion of the writing initially submitted for this anthology – like much current writing in English – was written from a child’s or young person’s point of view – again, as in the extract by Esther Freud. Children are thought to have a radically innocent viewpoint, which possibly makes it easier for the creators to do what all good writing does: ‘make strange’, or present the world in an original light. The young are sometimes at the mercy of grown-ups, starved of information while struggling to piece together the facts. The editors attribute this trend to ‘nostalgia in this virtual age for an old-fashioned kind of authenticity’. It might also be linked to the way that people across the world – despite the internet and the global village – often feel that they lack control, or are being denied the facts. Everyone wants to make sense of their situation.

The month-by-month pages will cover 12 contributions to New Writing 14. The introductions are written to help you enjoy the range of short stories, non-fiction pieces, novel extracts and poetry – in equal measure. They can be read before or after the pieces themselves, either by you as an individual reader, or to prompt discussion in a readers’ group.

As well as discussing the theme, the introductions may suggest links to other texts in the anthology, or to other writing by the same author, or to different traditional or contemporary work. Each introduction will also offer you follow-up questions. These are not meant to be exhaustive, and there are no right or wrong answers. The most important questions and conclusions may be those that strike you alone, and that depend on your experience, your tastes, your circumstances, and on your own reading. We hope you enjoy them.

Jenny Newman