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  Heroic Stanzas - The Age of...

  John Dryden

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  John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar.  
  Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year.  
  Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. 
   At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell.  The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. 
  The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death.  
  With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. 
   With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income.  
  In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). 
  This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. 
  In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event.  
  John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

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  Wild Imperfections - An...

  Natalia Molebatsi

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  Featuring the work of Black women poets from Botswana to Brazil, in this collection, we encounter ancestors who made love, just for the sake of love, and women who die with each orgasm while attempting to mark the extent of their own humanities.
  
  This is for the nuns, the singers, the clowns, the diviners and the conjurers who reject the constant attempt to clean up history. The wildly imperfect women of slick braids, shiny skin and succulent lips, building new homes from clouds for future legions.
  
  Here congregate the women, womxn and womyn who do not believe in tough love that disguises hurt just to prove a point. They dance with the dead with exquisite feet, cheekbones high, reflecting their mothers' smiles.
  
  Because no one claps for martyrs, these dirty/pretty women learn to walk cities like they own them, choosing the battles of their hearts.
  
  If this collection teaches anything, it is that love is always messy, that our sacrament requires wet wipes and that we are just flesh and bone honing practice.

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  Way of the Unfaithful

  Sinmisola Ogunyinka

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  Faithful and humble wife Kokei Keyu seemed to enjoy a near-perfect marriage until her husband, Dodeye, accepted a chieftaincy title from home. Kokei’s life is about to change forever. In a compelling and spellbinding drama, age-long secrets burst into a once-peaceful home, causing more damage than all anticipated, revealing the past and showing that what we sow is really what we are going to reap.

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  When The Sun Went Out - A...

  Dr. Amr Mounir

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  Imagine waking up one day to find the world plunged into darkness. The sun has suddenly gone out! Temperatures are plummeting, chaos is reigning, and life as we know it is forever changed. What will become of humanity? How will life continue without the sun?

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  Perfection Comes at a Price

  Ulla Beattie

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  Eric has a miserable childhood in a violent, drunken family in a tough London housing estate. He compensates by looking for perfection. For him, this means worldly success in a diplomatic career as far away from his childhood as possible. His single-minded ambition comes at a price. It makes him leave his childhood sweetheart Katie behind, since he knows that she can’t keep up with him. Their ways part. Eric marries an upper-class woman and becomes an Ambassador. However, Katie and he never quite lose touch. After his wife’s death Eric and Katie come together again. There is action and pace, fun and sadness, a huge variety of life experiences and a sense of providence and redemption.

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  The Transformative Power of Tattoo

  Julianne Ingles

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  A smashing collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by a diverse group of writers who delve into tattoos in terms of class, body image, history, empowerment and transformations. It's an investigation into why people get tattoos and how they transform a person's life.
  Our 19 contributors are debut and award-winning. Their work includes memoir, transgressive fiction, horror, magical realism, sci-fi, literary fiction, poetry and personal essays. We're delighted to share with you their take on the tattoo.

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