Issue 6

Issue 6 of TAMARIND is now available for purchase in digital and for pre-order in print. All previous issues except issue 5 are also available to buy, while stocks last. You can read and download current and past issues of the magazine online at read.tamarindlit.co.uk. Just enter your order number, issue number, and email address.
Sal, Griffith Pound
Griffith Pound is a new writer of speculative and literary fiction. His work has appeared in the Mobius Blvd Book 2 anthology and online in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Ariel Chart, and Down in the Dirt. When not writing, Griffith is the father of three sarcastic but wonderful teenagers, the owner of an energetic border collie, and a slave to a cat.
Wild Blue Yonder, Daniel Hesk | @daniel.hesk (Instagram)
Born and raised in rural Scotland, Daniel moved to London in 2022 to pursue a degree in physics at Imperial College. He reads strange books and writes short fiction in his spare time.
Error, Vanessa Hayes
Vanessa Hayes is a science educator and communicator living in California, USA. She received an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London in 2023, and wrote and edited for Imperial’s magazine, I, Science, and their science radio station, Mission Impossible, in her time there. ‘Error’ is her creative writing and short story debut.
A Rectifiable Arc, Shelly Jones | @shellyjansen (Twitter)
shellyjonesphd.wordpress.com
Shelly Jones (they/them) is a professor at a small college in upstate New York, where they teach classes in mythology, folklore, and writing. Their speculative work has been published in F&SF, The Future Fire, and elsewhere.
Dead Man’s Fingers, Rekha Valliappan | @silicasun (Twitter)
silicasun.wordpress.com
Rekha Valliappan is an award winning writer of short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Her writing has featured in diverse journals and anthologies, including Litro Magazine, Lackington Magazine, The Cabinet of Heed, The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review, The Blue Nib, and All Your Stories Magazine.
Raising Morels, Tara K. Ross | @tara.k.ross (Instagram)
tarakross.com
Tara K. Ross is a writer, podcaster, and audiobook narrator based in Southern Ontario. She is vice-chair of the board for the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and co-host of The Hope Prose Podcast. Her debut novel, Fade to White, was published in 2020. Her fiction and essays have also appeared in Wells Street Journal, Grace Go Bloom, and Love is Moving. When she’s not adulting, Tara is climbing the Ontario escarpment and working on her next novel in her cabin in the woods.
Enfender’s Folly, David Sheskin
sheskinart.my.canva.site
David Sheskin is a former university professor and the author of The Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures (Chapman and Hall). Most recently he has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, The Font, The Dalhousie Review, and Cleaver Magazine. His most recent books are Art That Speaks, David Sheskin’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and Outrageous Wedding Announcements.
Experimental Film, Joe Oswald | @joemoswald (Instagram)
Joe Oswald is a writer and photographer based in London.
In the Eye of the Moon, Sylvie Jane Lewis | @sylviejanelewis (Instagram)
Sylvie Jane Lewis writes fiction and poetry, and has an English master’s from Cambridge. In 2023, she was winner of the CUPPS Prize and runner-up of the Sykes Prize. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Ink Sweat and Tears, Feral Journal, and Spinozablue.
Not from an Astronomer, Meredith Miller | @FallRiverUK (Instagram)
meredithmiller.me
Meredith Miller was born in Long Island, New York, and has lived in the UK since 1997. She is the author of three published novels and numerous short stories, as well as literary criticism focusing on gender, sexuality and fiction. Her most recent novel, Fall River (Honno Press), was published in March 2024.
White as Bones, Yuxin Zhao
Yuxin Zhao is a writer from Hangzhou, China, currently based in the UK. Yuxin mainly writes experimental fiction and poetry on immigration, language, family history, and queer desire. Yuxin’s debut novel, The Moons: Fire Rooster to Earth Dog, is available now (Calamari Archive).
In Conversation with Martin MacInnes
Martin MacInnes is a multi-award-winning writer based in Edinburgh. His most recent novel, In Ascension, is being translated into nine languages and has been optioned for film.

EDITORIAL

Over the past months, the prospect of crises spiralling out of control – ecological, economic, and geopolitical – has left us with the feeling of standing on the precipice of madness. When expert voices form a cacophony, it is impossible to know whether dread for our future is rational.

This sense of a vast – perhaps terrible – unknown pervades TAMARIND Issue 6, which travels from the age of the dinosaurs to the climate-ravaged future. In their encounters with the unknown, characters are sometimes charmed, sometimes horrified, but seldom do they escape unchanged. The issue ends with an interview with Scottish author Martin MacInnes, whose Booker-longlisted novel In Ascension explores this very theme with breathtaking skill and ambition.

TAMARIND continues to examine through literature those questions that we consider evergreen for science. How is the experience of science different for ‘outsiders’? Can science deepen our understanding of ourselves? And which questions is science ill-equipped to answer?’

This issue marks a fresh start for TAMARIND, with a new layout by designer Lydia Blagden. Alongside the authors’ contributions, it features original art from Jane Meng and photography from Angel Li. We are very proud of this issue and what our contributors have to share – we hope they speak to you as much as they did to us.

The TAMARIND Editors