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      • THE CLEARING
          • the clearing

            An online journal published by Little Toller Books that offers writers and artists a dedicated space in which to explore and celebrate the landscapes we live in. Our contributors are encouraged to go forth and find distinctive visions that startle us, rural or urban, modern or prehistoric, industrial, post-industrial, fantastical, natural, political, however they come. But each must be meaningful, surprising, felt.
          • READ THE CLEARING
          • Submission Guidelines

          • Seasonal Rituals by Philip StrangeThese late autumn starling displays have also become, for me, part of the seasonal rituals of Cogden Beach
          • Losing Your Place by Sue Clifford and Angela KingQuesting for local distinctiveness must err towards the inclusive and welcoming, it is not about designating areas more beautiful or more derelict or worthy of grants.
          • Knife by Sarah-Jane DobnerBend down and pinch a ripple of skin. It’s warm and springy, taut to the body.
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      Category / Essay / illustration / The Clearing

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      • Perhaps All Art Is Ritual by Jackie Morris

        Is this giving back of the stones ritual; back to the land, to the sea, to the living, to the dead?

        July 4, 2022
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • Tanera Mor – the Summer Isles by Simon Page

        Crayon on paper illustrations of the Summer Isles, by the artist Simon Page.

        March 24, 2022
        illustration, The Clearing
      • Hiraeth and Hwyl: Neighbours/Cymdogion by Marged Pendrell

        New work, a flotilla of boats constructed from the natural minerals of Snowdonia.

        September 21, 2021
        illustration, The Clearing
      • Hiraeth and Hwyl: Ketamine Dreams by Sophie Willard Van Sistine

        The artist Sophie Willard Van Sistine reflects on the impact of the medication she takes for her chronic depression in this brilliant and personal visual essay

        September 1, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • Extracts from a Nature Journal by Alex Boon

        The heath full of leggy looking foxgloves coming to their end.

        August 9, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • Something of the Marvellous by Andrew Pastor and Patricia Barrett

        Waves ebbing over shingle, breaking over rocks, swirling around reefs – all here inland.

        June 15, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • GRIEF, PLACE, LANDSCAPE – Simon Moreton in conversation with Jeff Young

        Our relationship to the landscape and the places we move through or live in has always fascinated me.

        June 3, 2021
        illustration, Interview, The Clearing
      • GRIEF, PLACE, LANDSCAPE: For Sarah by Peony Gent

        I actively thought nothing about the Fens until a long time after I left them. They were a place I only grew to see when they became coloured with the contrast of living elsewhere.

        June 3, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • GRIEF, PLACE, LANDSCAPE – A contradiction of sorts by Marie Smith

        I knew no-one but I enjoyed myself nevertheless; I met people in bars, managed to negotiate the city with tips from social media. I seemed to be carrying myself on an adventurous spirit that I never knew I had.

        June 1, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • GRIEF, PLACE, LANDSCAPE – She Exhales by Maxim Peter Griffin

        you could buy a bungalow under the sea wall for buttons – she used to bring the kids here – they used to go up Jackson’s and pour coppers in the slots

        June 1, 2021
        Essay, illustration, The Clearing
      • Eight West Dorset Church Porches by Alison Bunning and Virginia Astley

        Stepping between diagonal buttresses
        they climb the lichened steps
        below the swallows’ nests and crenellations
        to the shrine of St Wite.

        April 12, 2021
        illustration, Poetry, The Clearing

      About

      THE CLEARING is an online journal published by Little Toller Books that offers writers and artists a dedicated space in which to explore and celebrate the landscapes we live in. Our contributors are encouraged to go forth and find distinctive visions that startle us, rural or urban, modern or prehistoric, industrial, post-industrial, fantastical, natural, political, however they come. But each must be meaningful, surprising, felt.



      Submissions

      The editors welcome original submissions in written, audio and visual genres. Submission should reflect The Clearing/Little Toller’s concern with the natural environment, but within this broad subject-matter we encourage a diversity of interpretation and approach.

      If you’d like to submit work to The Clearing, please email theclearing@littletoller.co.uk. Please refer to the submission guidelines. While we receive many submissions we will get back to you as soon as we are able.

      Categories

      • Diary (34)
      • Essay (219)
      • Film (14)
      • illustration (11)
      • Interview (14)
      • Photography (4)
      • Podcast (7)
      • Poetry (123)
      • Reading (2)
      • Short Story (1)

      You May Also Like

      • Seasonal Rituals by Philip Strange
        These late autumn starling displays have also become, for me, part of the seasonal rituals of Cogden Beach […]
      • Losing Your Place by Sue Clifford and Angela King
        Questing for local distinctiveness must err towards the inclusive and welcoming, it is not about designating areas more beautiful or more derelict or worthy of grants. […]
      • Knife by Sarah-Jane Dobner
        Bend down and pinch a ripple of skin. It’s warm and springy, taut to the body. […]

      Podcast

      • A walk along Chesil by Sarah Acton
      • I’m a bat, I’m totally a bat
      • Paul Kingsnorth in conversation with Charles Foster: a podcast

      From the Archive

      • New poetry by Andrew Forster
        Up the beach a sandstone wall, crumbling to pinkish powder, …
      • Jack Thacker – Three Poems
        Jack Thacker grew up on a farm in Herefordshire. He …
      • Harvest Films
        The Harvest Short Film Competition is a biannual event curated …
      . . .

      Whats in the name

      Tollern river valley in West Dorset. Recorded in the Domesday survey as Tolre, derived from a Celtic word for stream in a hollow valley.

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