Launch of Ampersand 6-a journal of curated curiosities.

Hey, surprise: Ampersand Magazine linked to my piece for the Emerging Writers Festival, with lots of lovely pics. It gives an account of the launch of their Issue #6 in May 2013 at 1000 Pound Bend. What a cool place. What a great night. And what a lovely publication Ampersand is.

Pre-launch: the bar at 1000 Pound Bend
Pic Anna Sublet

I am quite proud of this bit of writing and had a lot of fun putting it together with a tight deadline as part of the Emerging Writers Festival Blog Squad.

Strangely, the only reason I found this was that someone did a Google search with my name, and the first thing to come up was my work on Ampersand's site.

Nick Coyle launches it off.
Pic Anna Sublet

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A morning too early, a morning too late

Sensing the future It was our last morning in New York City. It was a morning too early to be leaving, and as it turned out, a morning too late. Dad was on his final lap of life, and we were making a dash home to cheer him along as he hit the home straight . I went down to breakfast with a heavy heart. The bar was buzzing. Halloween scenes were already playing out in the streets. A kind waiter asked me 'have you got your costume sorted for tonight?' To which I stumbled, 'no...I I I have to go home. My dad's sick...' and began to cry. The dear boy was shocked, 'Oh, I'm so sooorreeee. Do you wanna hug?' I could barely breathe. NO, I managed. I ate cereal alone, and had grapefruit juice. Dad loved grapefruit. I packed the last of my things, and stumbled out through the lobby, past glamorous girls in fabulous costumes. Mark had already run off to explore the neighbourhood after checking out of the hotel early. It didn't seem...

Coming of Age

The bricks were always cold underneath my bum. Cold and hard. I could feel their sharp edges. In the nights we sat and talked, my brother and I and the neighbourhood boys. The smells of sour smoke and saliva on one, body odour on another, and menace on the other. The fluorescent globes hummed from the train station platform across the road, and the street lights pooled at the corner. Inside was out of bounds to these boys, so we met on our side stairs. The frosted glass door between us and our home. These were the kids we didn’t trust, the boys from the wrong side of the tracks. Where were their parents? Absent fathers, unsighted mothers, these boys roamed the streets and set me on edge. The attraction to the dirt, to the smell of one’s mouth...I can still feel it now. It was an urge, but not an infatuation. The hearts of these boys remained hidden. It was as if they walked in costumes, played their parts, and kept their distance. One day, my mum greeted me at...

Shadow of the Oaks

As soon as I saw it, I wished I hadn't. There was something deadly ominous about the darkened room. Bare wood floors, panelled wood walls, slices of weak light coming in through the long, autumnal windows. Funereal. I could hardly process it. A sign. The room was empty, the service cancelled, the food and drink all dried up. Finished. It was our last day in New York, and we had returned to the Oak Room at The Plaza to toast Dad with a negroni. At this stage, when we knew he was fading, e ach negroni seemed like a communion . The Plaza was one of the places him and mum had honeymooned. The last time we'd been in NYC, with kids in tow, we had blown a couple of hundred dollars on fancy burgers and lemonades for the kids, and champagne and wine with dinner for us. Spending mum and dad's trip gift money. That was nearly 5 years earlier. We had taken our girl to look for Eloise , the little literary inhabitant of the Plaza...

Notes of Substance

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