Keely Shinners

The following is an introduction to the latest issue of the Full Stop Quarterly, edited by Full Stop Fellow Keely Shinners. You can purchase the single issue here or subscribe at our Patreon page to get every issue and more. I approached art through writing. That is, once I had decided to become a writer, I was determined to write and, crucially, determined to make a living as a writer. My first job in this regard was at an art magazine in Los Angeles.

Red ocher––its smell, color, and texture––holds strong associations for Manyaku Mashilo, a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily in painting. As a child, after a long day of playing outside, her shoes and legs would be covered in the color, which is derived from the iron-rich clay in her home province of Limpopo in northwestern South Africa.

[Karavan Press; 2025] Lucienne Bestall’s essay collection, Except for Breath, is a sprawling debut, encompassing such diverse themes as limerence and liturgy, migraine and suicide, the car crash that killed Princess Diana and the city of Beirut. A motley crew, one might say. As Bestall notes in her prologue, she is a “gleaner,” a magpie, the collection a work of “pastiche.” Nevertheless, there are throughlines. Images, for instance.