Interstices

‘Interstices are very small spaces “standing between” solid objects. Sometimes so minute the eye passes straight over them, yet a beam of light directed through an interstice has the potential to illuminate in an unexpected way. Interstices simultaneously divide and connect what surrounds them. They can be places for distraction, experiment and potentially radical redefinition. An interstice can also be a tiny interval of time, unaccounted for and uncountable, the transitional space at the end of a breath. On the web, interstitials are those annoying pages overlaying the content page you were expecting to reach. On the map, a border or nobody’s land could be visualised as an interstice; whether it’s safe or dangerous will depend on who you are.

Guest edited by Bridget Penney, Interstices has commissioned new novels from Diana Georgiou and Harun Morrison that draw on the ideas suggested by “interstices”, and follow the publication Licorice, a novel that grew out of my conflicted attitude towards “folk horror” and the challenges produced by trying to write radically in an inherently conservative genre.

Commissioned and edited by Bridget Penney, author of Index (Semina No. 1, 2008) and Licorice (Interstices No. 1, 2020).