Burning House Press

Tangerine Coast by A.J. Lees The North Shore, Blackpool. All photos by Stefan Svennson. Every year, in the last week of June, the mills, engine rooms, and coal mines in Oldham closed down, and an exodus followed. My great-gran…

"The music seemed timeless. Soon I was floating out on the floor, feeling the syncopated horns and strings, galvanising my thinning muscles. I was still the old modernist, making moves I didn’t know I still had in me."

A.J. Lees regains his Northern Soul in Blackpool.

@thearsonista.bsky.social

My last days as guest editor @thearsonista.bsky.social, marked by a flurry of publication.

My sincere thanks to @miggyangel.bsky.social for the opportunity and to all the November contributors for your inspiring works.

burninghousepress.com

this by anna f. Photos/artwork by anna f. All this started on a lonely bench at Frustration Station. There I was, sitting, with a crushing sense of defeat, of failure, and a nagging urge to engage in some kind of …

"I wandered down a path without any sense (nor care) of where I was going. No purpose, no intention, no destination — a random walk in the dark."

anna f., aka @kimcarsons4.bsky.social, on her new, 2D adventures in mixed media.

[via @thearsonista.bsky.social]

burninghousepress.com/2025/11/26/t...

Night Train by Nick Stewart Video, audio, and piano by Nick Stewart In March 2020, I needed a break and booked the Caledonian Sleeper Train from London to the Scottish highlands. But, on the third and last day, walking on a w…

"I didn’t sleep. Instead, I spent much of the 12-hour journey videoing out the conveniently placed window in my sleeping compartment."

Nick Stewart on the night train from London to the Scottish Highlands, in 2020.

[via @thearsonista.bsky.social]

Glittering Metals by Lake Sleep Sailing in the Caribbean Sea changed me, it’s true. I hold the memories delicately in my fingers wherever I go. . . . March 29, 2024, in New Orleans, Louisiana: things at the tattoo shop hadn’t pan…

"The strangest thing about traveling for a long time is the return. Your descent back into your old life and old patterns feels like a direct confrontation with your past self."

New Orleans artist and tattoist @lake.bsky.social on her random impulse to go to sea.

[via @thearsonista.bsky.social]

Mizmaze by Sylvia Warren The first time I walked a city without direction was in Florence. Before that trip each day was regimented by parents—a designated set of sites to visit, walking through the streets was a chore bet…

"This is not an essay about psychogeography or being a flâneur, it is a question of what about settling somewhere is it that resists what is otherwise one of life’s great pleasures."

@sylvswarren.bsky.social writes about familiar walks she describes as 'mizmazes.

[via @thearsonista.bsky.social]

A short poem I wrote has just been published in Burning House Press. Thanks to guest editor c.c. o'hanlon.

Stoked to be published by @ccohanlon.bsky.social in Burning House Press this month, writing about my trial monitoring years in Turkey. @thearsonista.bsky.social

Journey To The Centre Of Dictatorship by Line Stockford Photo by Caroline Stockford Once you see past the cellophaned shop-window of tourism and into the infected stomach-wound of political history you begin a journey to the centre of dictatorship. And …

burninghousepress.com/2025/11/22/j...

Thanks to CC O’Hanlon for publishing my words on working in Turkey and the incredible resistance that goes on there. Read the great pieces around ‘journeys’ at @thearsonista.bsky.social

Late September 1978 by Kelly Rebar Photo by Kelly Rebar Every year I’m taken therethe air the light the sightof leavesdrifting pastwithout a care I’m drivingin the Rockiesin my old Plymouth Valianta shade of bronzeyou don’t much see…

I watch the kettle while it boils
I open my notebook
on the kitchen table
by a window
with green curtains
and lo and behold I find a candle
meant for emergency
but at 23 who waits for that
you see a candle
you light it..."

A memoir/poem by @kellyjeanrebar.bsky.social

@thearsonista.bsky.social

Journey To The Centre Of Dictatorship by Line Stockford Photo by Caroline Stockford Once you see past the cellophaned shop-window of tourism and into the infected stomach-wound of political history you begin a journey to the centre of dictatorship. And …

"Once you see past the cellophaned shop-window of tourism and into the infected stomach-wound of political history you begin a journey to the centre of dictatorship..."

Jagged reflections by @linecaro.bsky.social's, via @thearsonista.bsky.social, on being an observer at Turkish writers' trials.

Three Poems by Alexis Karlsen Ferdaminni [XI/24 – X/25] The dust on the roadRotting leaves on a cold autumn morningThe faint scent of hasty intimacy hours earlierThe dogs are nervous tonightThere’s blood on the wind…

Just posted @thearsonista.bsky.social: three poems by German-born but Norwegian-based Alexis Karlsen, whose work "spans three languages and reflects the life experience of a disillusioned underdog drifter."

The Long Game by Kyla Houbolt Cutting locust tree saplingsto feed to the sheep whoblatt impatiently. A locust grovehas started and it must be stopped.Locust has thorns and is goodfor little except feeding goatsand sheep. Althou…

"The cost of the coast is the loss
of honest sand, which was host
to myriad lives we’ve failed
to understand. Now there are
daily sweeps of machines
to scrape the bought sand smooth."

The Long Game, a poem by another American, Kyla Houbolt, via @thearsonista.bsky.social.

Kerala Notes by Kim Dorman Photos by Kim Dorman Through a grimy windowopen fieldssmall houses by trackspeople standingor sittingin doorwayswatching the train . . . 6.30 p.m. muezzin’s call to prayer . . . The battered, ruste…

A rare glimpse into a poet's observations, via this November edition of @thearsonista.bsky.social:

Kerala Notes by American-born Kim Dorman @kimdorman.bsky.social, who lives in India and whose haunting Kerala Journal was published four years ago by @corbelstonepress.bsky.social.

Autumn is co-director (with artist Richard Skelton) of the multi-media publishing house @corbelstonepress.bsky.social, which has published three other writers — Gaspar Orozco, @kimdorman.bsky.social and me — contributing to @thearsonista.bsky.social's November issue.

Boreal by Autumn Richardson i.carnelian willows flint veins of the riverhoof-worn rock and a drifting scent of ungulates (scars in stone fossil trails)magnetic north pilgrimageI bow to the illuminations within woundsthe work …

It's a privilege to publish new work by the brilliant Autumn Richardson in @thearsonista.bsky.social : six poems assembled under the title, Boreal.

burninghousepress.com/2025/11/20/b...

Will be reading pomes at Danny Clarke’s book launch Bethnal Green 2nd Dec @hesterglock.bsky.social

>>>if you’re in London come down say yo hear a poem launch a book get yr portrait took 📸 s’gonna be good 🥳❤️📕<<<

My wife died some years ago and so with much gratitude to @ccohanlon.bluesky.social for the invitation to publish this piece through Burning House Press @thearsonista.bsky.social on her anniversary:

Mòran taing

burninghousepress.com/2025/11/18/e...

On Pilgrimage by William Parsons Photo by William Parsons The Paradox of Connectivity Modern life is increasingly connected: central heating to phone, fridge to supermarket, watch to heartbeat. Without touching a button we can cha…

"...the ever-increasing pace and price of work/life leaves little time to simply connect with the land, with ourselves and each other."

– William Parsons, in an excerpt from his forthcoming book on pilgrimage, via @thearsonista.bsky.social.

Everything Is Far Away by Brian McHenry Drawings by Brian McHenry I have a favourite road. There is a moment in the film version of Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water when the main character, Graham, gets off the MacBraynes’ bus and fo…

"I think of those landscapes now that we’re not there,

the spaces where we used to be.

Your presence as it shifts into abstraction

and distant thought now

the space between you and me and the lines that I draw."

– @brianmchenry.bsky.social

Words and drawings via @thearsonista.bsky.social.

Walking In Circles by Paul Tritschler Photo by Paul Tritschler Midway through the event, a woman seated in the front row of the audience asked the panel of four authors, all of whom had made an appearance for the purpose of promoting t…

"For some people, travel writers are escape artists sharing their secrets on how to break loose from sameness. Others live to wander, to find stillness in motion, and perhaps by chance to find missing parts of the story that made them who they are."

– Paul Tritschler, via @thearsonista.bsky.social

First time for
@thearsonista.bsky.social
First time for my creative writing, ever!

Tá athas an domhain orm
Over the moon!

3 poems from Book of Mirages (Libro de los Espejismos) by Gaspar Orozco, translated from the Spanish by Ilana Luna Photo by C.C. O’Hanlon ¿Y el fuego que no se ve? ¿Cómo registrarlo? ¿Y la llama que invisible cerca al cuerpo? ¿Y la hoguera incolora que arde en el cerebro? ¿Cómo dibujarlas, cómo explicarla…

"The sea sets free one of its winds to lose it inside the labyrinth. You’ll find it carrying the rumor of distant chimes and sad stones and metals that shine from afar. ..."

– Gaspar Orozco

His three beautiful poems in two languages, translated by Ilana Luna.

[via @thearsonista.bsky.social]

Twisted Spoon Press & Alexander Booth present the work of Gerhard Rühm / Wednesday, November 26 at 19:30 / Café Club Míšenská / Míšenská 71/3 / Malá Strana, Prague

For those of you in Prague -- come on over to Café Club Míšenská in Malá Strana next Wednesday evening!

Imprint Of Weeping Angels by Jenni Fagan Photo by Jenni Fagan There are people with real names and there are those who will never know such a thing. Those with real names have had them called out loud in the valley of their soul. Those pe…

"The truth of irrevocable realities — do not belong to them: cannot be named by them: cannot be contained by them — truth is the most garish of foundlings, it is the eternal spirit companion of weeping angels..."

A searing piece for @thearsonista.bsky.social by the extraordinary Jenni Fagan.

Original Sin by Liz Cullinane Sculpture by Liz Cullinane Watercress abundant, pooled, fed by a freshwater stream that leaks a channel, a winding furrow  carving an arc across the sands. Joining the Atlantic salt waters. Di…

A writer to watch: my dear friend, @liznangel3.bsky.social. Her extraordinary Original Sin, excerpted from a work-in-progress, is a poignant prose poem of remembrance and loss.

This is her first for @thearsonista.bsky.social.

Dancing On The Silk Razor, a film by D.W. Young Dancing on the Silk Razor was born out of a discussion I had with my friend Dan Wechsler. We were contemplating various writing work we’d done when younger, and he mentioned there was a first…

Showing now on @thearsonista.bsky.social, D.W. Young's short 35mm film, Dancing on the Silk Razor, produced by New York-based @fineprintpictures.bsky.social, features a narration by Wallace Shawn.

The first works of my month-long editorship of @thearsonista.bsky.social will be uploaded this evening around 18.00 (Western Europe time). New works will then be added every couple of days until the end of the month:

Submissions are open for just one more week!

Many thanks!

This is terrific. 👆