JD Howse

Thinking about the countdown of the 100 greatest novels that The Guardian is doing currently and throwing in my two cents - The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, Beloved by Toni Morrison, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Outline by Rachel Cusk, Maurice by EM Forster, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, The Swan Book by Alexis Wright, and Jack the Modernist by Robert Gluck.

I've got some new work from a current WIP Threnody, A Ghost Story in the new issue of Ludd Gang alongside some truly incredibly writers. Thanks to guest editor Robyn Skyrme for asking me - if you want a copy head over to poetshardshipfunduk.com and consider donating to them while you're there

Gonna be reading at Housmans at the end of the month, come along - free tickets available on their website

I'm reading in Peckham next Thursday for @spamzine you should come

"I write to break out into perfect primeval Consent. I wish I could tenderly lift from the dark side of history, voices that are anonymous, slighted - inarticulate." - Susan Howe, There Are Not Leaves Enough to Crown to Cover to Crown to Cover (1990) ​ For the seventh issue of permeablebarrier we are seeking submissions that engage with the above quote; work that plunders archives, animates hidden voices, spotlights buried histories, and gives voice to the inarticulate. ​ As ever we are seeking creative work of any kind; send us your poems, stories, essays, collages, videos, artworks, images, sounds, performances, etc etc. If you're interested in contributing a review or interview please contact us with a brief proposal as early as possible. ​ Submissions will be read by guest editor Briony Hughes and PB curator JD Howse. ​ Send your submissions to permeablebarrier at outlook dot com. Include a short 3rd person bio and a brief blub for the work you are submitting. Please attach text-based submissions to your email as a word or pages document, image based submissions as a jpeg, tif, or pdf, and videos a link to a copy of the work on youtube, vimeo, or similar embeddable website. You can familiarise yourself with what we're interested in by reading prior issues of permeablebarrier, but as a general rule we are drawn to innovative, unusual work which exists in the between spaces of form, medium, and genre. While we have no word or page count limits for submissions, please be aware of how your work will be formatted on the site when submitting. Please note that we are not interested in writing from Large Language Models or AI generated images. If you have any questions please drop us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. We hope to be in touch about submissions by the end of April; while we reply to every submission unfortunately we're not able to provide detailed feedback for rejections. ​#callforsubmissions #callforartists #filmpoetry #videoart #poetry

back on social media because I have something to promote. reading next week.

I've got a new short story live on @osmosispress now - link in bio. Picture of Gray is an extract from a much longer work currently called Brutalist Baroque. It's about failed relationships, disability, dysmorphia, and the impossibility of being a good activist when the world is in a constant state of horror.

Next Sunday evening I'm doing an online poetry reading for the @crisis_crystal reading series. Go and follow them, they'll post the link to the reading on here Sunday evening. Tuning in to Crisis Crystal on a Sunday evening to listen to some wonderful new poetry has become a highlight for me and I'm so grateful to Robyn for organising the series and inviting me to read. Online literary events are a vital way of ensuring accessibility for people who find it difficult or impossible to attend in person events. Anyway, I'm going to be reading some poems abt dicks and eggs and birds (I think, still haven't fully decided) so you should come along mostly to listen to the other two readers. What else are you doing 9pm on a Sunday, let's be honest.

You can check out a new story from PermeableBarrier curator @jdhowse right now on our website, where we've shared Self Portrait in a Concave Mirror, the first chapter from his novel The Passion of St Sebastian. "Joseph Andrews meets Sebastian, a lawyer with a quick wit and intense commitment issues, in the basement of a gay sauna and the pair immediately hit it off. But as Sebastian's inconsistency stalls the couple's romance, Joseph begins to wonder if he's actually in love, or if his obsession with Sebastian is nothing but a distraction from something more real, and more distressing. While Joseph falls into autistic burnout and seeks therapy for his Body Dysmorphic Disorder, the traumas of his past and future are brought to the surface, his shifting perception of his own body mirrored in Sebastian's transformation to some strange conglomeration of every man he has ever known, before he finally, irrevocably disappears into the sea. In the aftermath of Sebastian's disappearance, Joseph must confront everything he has been trying to distract himself from. What remains of a love story when both its lovers are exorcised from its pages? What is the cost of living in a neoliberal Britain that has been stripped of every safety net? Is it ever possible to truly know yourself, let alone another person?"

Our next publication, Speculative Frequencies by Briony Hughes, publishes in June 2025! Come on down to the launch at @housmans_books on Thursday 19th at 7pm

PermeableBarrier Six - Signal - is now live on our website, with contributions from Owen Brakspear, Richard Carter, Susie Campbell, Tamsyn Challenger, Winter Chen, Cat Chong, Francis de Lima, Gareth Farmer, Charlie Fitz and Oscar Vinter, Francis Gene-Rowe, JD Howse, James Kearns, Kyle Lovell, Evie Mack, Isabelle Masters, Owen Roberts, Rushika Wick and an announcement from PermeableBarrier and Briony Hughes Head over to our website now! PB is best viewed on desktop as the formatting of some pieces doesn't work well on mobile.

This Sunday 12th Jan at 7pm I'll be reading at Xing the Line with Robert Hampson and The Bohman Brothers [and also an open mic]. It's at Jaguar Shoes, 32 Kingsland Road. Come on down. Thanks to Iris and Jeff for inviting me.