Mslexia Magazine

The majority of commissions for the magazine result from people contacting us out of the blue, so do get in touch. All we need from you is a short (100-300 word) summary of what you want to write, plus a brief bio explaining why you’re the right person to write it. Here’s how it works. Every three months we scoop up all the pitches we’ve received recently, and debate which we’re going to commission for the next edition of the mag. Then we contact the writers concerned to discuss the specifics.

2025 was another stellar year for independent publishers; another year when their books stormed onto the longlists and shortlists of practically all the UK's top literary prizes, and claimed the winners' crown of many. These achievements are especially impressive in fiction, where the small teams and minuscule budgets of indie presses are up against mighty multinational behemoths like Penguin and Hachette.

Over the past decade, indies have become a watchword for quality. It’s rare to find a major prize list without at least one indie publisher. The Booker, the International Booker, the Nobel, the Goldsmiths, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prizes, the Pulitzer – the list of prizes won by indies goes on.

E is for Edam It’s the last thing I hear at night and the first every morning. ‘Edam, Edam, Edam.’ Like an alarm clock. I go into Elliot’s room, and throw open the Thomas the Tank Engine curtains. Light barges in and he rubs his eyes, strawberry-blond curls twisting and shaking, like ghosts on a funfair ride. I begin my imaginary conversation. One of many I’ll have that day. Me: What a beautiful day! Elliott: Edam, Edam. Me: Yes I did hear the rain last night.

1. Do Process Grading papers is a slow process. A teacher must note not only suggestions, but the reasoning behind them. This takes time – so much so that my father, who is not a teacher, looked on in disbelief as I corrected a student’s essay. ‘You’re writing more comments?’ he fretted as I put pen to paper yet again. ‘Just write DB. I knew an executive who used to do that. All you need is DB.’ ‘What’s DB?’ I asked. ‘Do Better.’ 2.

Everything, Everything Everything, everything I give to them. As you gave to me: the bigger half; the warmest part; the hours once your own. The only thing you kept: raspberries, eaten at the sink, eyes closed. Then, I was given everything. Now, I have everything again, but of another sort – hands full, heart brimming, mind fogged, bones tired. Everything, everything, there is always more. So I stand by the sink and I eat raspberries, wishing still to be held by you, but now holding them.

Excavated Scar contours stretch across a fleshless chest. A bulbous cavity, flesh that was. A cursive seam scored from breast to armpit. Writ large: I am alive PHILIPPA RAMSDEN is retired and enjoys writing, reading, and taking part in workshops locally and online.

She labelled every jar on the shelf: 'Dill', 'Damson', 'Dates', 'Despair'. He frowned at that one. 'Just a joke,' she said, smiling. He smiled back but looked away. Later, after he'd gone out again, she stood in the kitchen with her hands still damp from the washing up. She reached for the final jar. Unclipped the lid. The smell was distantly familiar: something sour beneath the sugar. She held it to her nose for a long time, as if she might recognise it.

After Philip Larkin How can we mend but in days? They wake us, time and time with each loll of the sun over the horizon, nudging us towards the shedding of grudges, saying today, today might hurt less. Where can we measure our loss but in days? The cure administered in durations, half-lives, the will to survive pierced from foil blister packs, each capsule a sentence lived out with the fading of each day’s warmth from the sun.

In June 1949, The Forest of Dean’s Waterloo Colliery was engulfed by a massive inrush of water into the pit as old workings were breached. ‘So under "D" we got "drowned out". What do you understand by that?’ ‘Well that was, that was, that’da be describing when a mine’s workings was completely flooded with water.’ ‘And did you have any experience of this?’ ‘Oh oy, I was in the Pludds Colliery when Waterloo flooded. I done boring underground there you see.