I need to start with your story Shinjini, can you talk a little about the festival described in Bhailo?

​I refer here to both Tihar and Diwali. While Diwali is a mainstream Hindu festival, Tihar is celebrated in Nepal or among the Nepali community in India; 'Bhailo', the song, is sung by unmarried women as part of the ritual(s). The two festivals are celebrated around the same time, but the mythologies and the perspective vary. It is this difference that I write about in the story, where the narrator celebrates the hegemonic festival of light and power, Diwali. 

We paired Ronald's work up with Kindergarten by Thomas Kearnes in our Winter 2020 issue and it made us feel good, oh so good. Usually, we're happy about how our pieces turn out but really with this one the images and the words just came together so perfectly that despite all the COVID nonsense raging all over the world this combination let us hide our collective heads for a few wonderful moments. And who doesn't need that right now?

Winter last year was strange for everyone, that might be one of the reasons why Brett Biebel's story of self-discovery hit home with us here so hard or it just might have been because it is an amazing example of just what can be done with the flash form. Either way, Hook, Line, and Sinker is stellar and luckily for us we were able to get a touch of Brett's time and find out a little more about his process.

Naturally, you know how things got started. Brett, what is the first book you remember sitting down and reading by yourself?

Carolina Dutca and Valentin Sidorenko got our Winter 2020 issue off on the right foot with their piece Apa 5, read on to learn more about Carolina and of course to find out about her first book, her influences and a little more about what makes this wonderful Moldovan artist tick.  

A huge part of our satisfaction with the Winter 2020 issue came from being able to get Kindergarten out into the world. Naturally, blending Thomas's words with the wonderfully surreal imagery of Ronald Walker only added to the feeling and gave us the most wonderful cornerstone for the Winter 2020 issue to coalesce around. 

Recently we were lucky enough to grab a bit of Thomas's time for a quick sit-down and find out just a touch more about a writer who has become one of our in-house favourites.