Wool, a short essay by Amelia Hodsdon
Once upon a time, sheep in the fields here, in their sheepcots on the wolds, were the source of fortunes.
October 5, 2023Solastalgia Flights by Julia Brigdale
Our childhoods were a lie I now see, our memories, skewed. And therein lies the problem.
September 19, 2023Threads, a community poem
Red, it’s my colour,
the cuffs rippling in the wind,
Hung lazily off an arm.
September 8, 2023Eisteddfod! And the Welsh Language Landscape by Julie Brominicks
The bus had cruised north, Y Rhinogydd crisply defined. We collected a musician sucking vodka through a straw at Porthmadog
August 21, 2023Searching for Life in a Burial Chamber by Elizabeth Black
I felt buoyed by its energy as I descended towards the village and saw Silbury Hill appear singularly in the distance.
July 25, 2023Banal Utopia by JC Niala
Allotments are also utopias, because they are impossible spaces. They are rural artefacts that migrated to the city with their people.
June 26, 2023On Rain and Washing by Rebecca Smith
I was interested in the men who built this incredible feat of engineering, and the families they brought with them.
June 1, 2023A Symphony of Ancient Trees by Laura Parker
The trees that remained had recently witnessed revelries wild enough to rival any modern music festival.
May 22, 2023The Yellow Bittern by David Higgins
Bitterns are easier to hear than to see. What tends to be heard, though, is not their ‘cry / In the wild sky’, but the male’s remarkable booming call emerging from reedbeds in the breeding season.
April 24, 2023In High Places by Julia Brigdale
a jet fighter appeared out of the north-west sky and slashed through the air directly overhead.
February 20, 2023Children of the Forest by Juliette de Baïracli Levy
Among our happiest forest events every year were the summer and autumn fruit gatherings.
February 3, 2023
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 (243)
- Film (16)
- illustration (11)
- Interview (14)
- Photography (4)
- Podcast (6)
- Poetry (124)
- Reading (2)
- Short Story (1)
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Podcast
From the Archive
- How to Paint a Ditch by Hugh Dunford WoodWe all pass through, for a Holloway is not quite …
- Stepping Around Uneven Ground by Karen Jane CannonKnowledge is not necessarily about ‘seeing’ everything, but about knowing …
- On Noise by David HigginsI’ll tolerate the groan of earth, the crack of stone, …


