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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

        • A Field with a View by Jane RyanI knew that ownership was one key to the sense of safety that this meadow was offering us.
        • Leaf Litter by William RowlandsonAnd that is where the pain is. Like a medic in a war, patching up the wounded to patch up the wounded.
        • The Man of Blackmore Vale by Jonathan LawHow do we separate the reality of a place, a region, from our private hopes and nostalgias?
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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 (33)
    • Essay (232)
    • Film (16)
    • illustration (11)
    • Interview (14)
    • Photography (4)
    • Podcast (6)
    • Poetry (123)
    • Reading (2)
    • Short Story (1)

    You May Also Like

    • A Field with a View by Jane Ryan
      I knew that ownership was one key to the sense of safety that this meadow was offering us. […]
    • Leaf Litter by William Rowlandson
      And that is where the pain is. Like a medic in a war, patching up the wounded to patch up the wounded. […]
    • The Man of Blackmore Vale by Jonathan Law
      How do we separate the reality of a place, a region, from our private hopes and nostalgias? […]

    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

    • To Cradle a Moth by Abi Andrews
      "In its light I know where the world is." A …
    • Summer Bells and Rain by Virginia Astley
      The trees are moving in a strange way, like pantomime …
    • Perhaps All Art Is Ritual by Jackie Morris
      Is this giving back of the stones ritual; back to …
    . . .

    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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