A Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Welcome to StepAway Magazine‘s twenty-fifth issue.

Publishing twenty-five issues is a landmark for us. In particular, it makes me reflect on all of the writers we have published since rolling out our first issue in 2011. In terms of diversity, issue one took me by surprise. Our featured writers ranged from Sarah Schulman, an award-winning New York novelist and lesbian rights activist, to Changming Yuan, a poet who grew up in a remote village in China, to Tom Sheehan an author who served with the American 31st Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. Our writer’s varying range of backgrounds continues to delight and fascinate me.

Despite being a magazine based in England, StepAway receives considerably fewer submissions from U.K. based writers than it does from other English-speaking countries. America leads the way, but we also receive a surprisingly large number of submissions from writers living in the Republic of Ireland. Submissions from Australia are, however, rather rare. It was therefore a pleasure to publish Martin Christmas’s “No Through Road”, a wander through Adelaide as part of our twenty-fifth issue. Martin, a poet, photographer, and theatre director also kindly provides the cover art for this issue – a glaringly evocative examination of the nocturnal Australian city.

Over the course of twenty-five issues, StepAway has also made many valuable ongoing connections with writers. Joachim Frank is one such writer. We have published his work on five prior occasions – his keen sense of urban observation and crisply concise approach make his writing a perfect fit for StepAway. On this occasion, however, we are delighted to publish his work as a Nobel Prize winner. Along with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson, Joachim won The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 for “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”. On behalf of everyone at StepAway, I’d like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to Joachim, and thank him for his continuing support of the magazine.

Issue twenty-five is brimming with talent. We also have some excellent urban exploration from: Órla Fay, Tinka Harvard, Gill James, Jack Little, Theresa Ryder, Margarita Serafimova, Sue Spiers, Marc Swan and Lynn White.

So, without further ado, delve into the issue and allow yourself to be transported.

Enjoy our Autumn Issue!

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw

editor@stepawaymagazine.com