This is hello and goodbye from me! I’m Charlotte, Prize Manager at The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation and, I’m sad to say, this is my last Showcase for November.

Over the past four weeks, we’ve explored how difference can divide, how it can connect, and how it can challenge us to see the world in new ways. Today, as I wrap up this month’s Showcases, I want to celebrate the lighter, more joyous side of difference: the fun, the energy, and the beauty it brings to storytelling and to our lives.

In this first extract from Gabrielle Hew, we meet Hamish, an incredibly entertaining character whose vibrant personality leaps off the page. Spending time with someone so wonderfully different is an absolute delight, and his spark reminds us of the joy that difference can bring. This excerpt comes from Version Ultra, Gabrielle’s novel-in-progress, and I’m thrilled to feature her as one of the Foundation’s 2023 New Voices award winners.

Version Ultra

An Afternoon with Hamish Belle
Virgil Diamandis, reporting for the Hudson Hero

When I arrive, the excuses start immediately. He forgot we were meeting today. He’s never heard of me or the ‘local rag’ I write for. This isn’t a ‘televised thing,’ is it? He hasn’t been interviewed since ‘97 and he doesn’t remember the ‘protocol.’ He had a long night. He was up until six. Tonight is speech night. He doesn’t like to do interviews on speech night. And he has a toothache.

After a twelve-year hiatus, disgraced professor and provocateur Hamish Nathaniel Belle II is making his all-American comeback. In 1998, he was dismissed (he claims he resigned) from his tenure at Columbia University following a chain of controversies, all of which stemmed from his unorthodox teaching style: his methods included Turkish baths, salvia, and seminal retention. Interestingly, it was the staff who petitioned for Hamish’s removal. He was popular with students, many of whom lined up to bed the professor for an automatic pass, and the reviews of his coursework were generally favorable.

Following his ‘resignation,’ Hamish assumed a short-lived position as an adjunct at St. Sebastian, somehow became a Pulitzer awardee and a MacArthur genius, and abandoned his wife and children to embark on his now ubiquitous Latin American Odyssey.

‘The Uncontacted Erotique,’ the collection of drug-drenched essays produced during his three years living among protected Indigenous groups, details his more dubious claims: bribing Nazis, smoking opium out of pirate artifacts, doing witchcraft with dolphin midwives. One of the most pernicious rumors is that he impregnated five hundred women. This, he insists, is a gross misrepresentation.

‘If you must know, it didn’t occur in the natural way. I was harvested. Now roll that up in your expose and smoke it.’

His eyes are ninety percent pupil. The cocaine he’s been abusing all morning, none too discreetly, will prop him up until showtime.

I want to follow up on the circumstances of this ‘harvesting,’ but he’s already finished his cigarette and is halfway up the span. The Lofts at Premiere is one of many palatial meccas of Wall Street, 72 floors of mean money. We glide through a bedlam of Parian marble. Fat-faced butlers in burgundy tails are equipped with flutes of chilled fruit. The ceiling is unreasonably high for a building this tall; I suspect it isn’t up to code. A throng of indoor bridges winds all the way up the shaft—absolutely not up to code. As ever, Hamish is a man of conspicuous taste.

I blink and I’ve lost him again: he’s been engulfed by a parliament of glitterati. I recognize the severe-looking woman in white mink tottering on the balls of her Botoxed feet to kiss him on the mouth (with tongue): Tansy Delafield de Peyster. It’s hard to tell her age; she’s either a young old or an old young. (My bet is on young old.) Tansy is the heiress of East Fork and a childless widow. ‘You should be giving lectures at the Smithsonian,’ she drawls to Hamish, popping her olive. ‘Who’s this petit fleur?’

‘This is my good friend Virgil,’ he says, squeezing me a bit too hard on the back of the neck. ‘Esteemed journalist from The New Yorker. Writer and reporter. Showed up at the crack of dawn to interrogate me, didn’t you? Good old American boy. A fine Princeton lad. You’ll flatter me, won’t you, Virgil? You’ll tell them I did it the natural way?’

‘Virgil, dahling, do me next,’ says Hestia Griswold-Pineda, a model, who introduces herself as ‘part-time ingenue, full-time Moorish jewel.’ Hamish’s featureless wink says it all: ‘So-so.’

‘The Smithsonian!’ a chorus goes up. ‘The Smithsonian!’

© Gabrielle Hew, 2024

If you are looking to develop your idea for a story into a manuscript and would like to find out more about the New Voices award, please visit The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation website. Submissions will reopen in the New Year.

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Next, we have a poem from Isabelle Audiger, which fits beautifully with the idea of finding joy and wonder in difference. Here, the narrator finds inspiration, adventure and discovery in a map her friend has drawn.

The Map

I’m looking at a map of Japan
Drawn by a Japanese friend
Her light fingers have charted a journey
The delicate and fragile skin of her hands
Tell the story of women who have lived on air and fought intense battles
I follow the outlines of the
itinerary she has chosen for me
I’m getting ready
For the wind in my hair
For the battles
For the gains and the losses
For life

(c) Isabelle Audiger, 2024

You can connect with Isabelle on Facebook, X and Instagram, and read more of her writing on her website.

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This short story, Shuttlecocks And Shoelaces, from James Marshall, explores difference as a source of humour. The clash, and resulting tension, between Mrs Beale’s flamboyant personality and exaggerated anecdotes, Audrey’s exasperation and Robert’s understated, practical manner highlights the ways in which bringing together people from different backgrounds and with different world views can bring about witty and hilariously sharp interactions.

Shuttlecocks And Shoelaces

Sweat ran down my back as I perched upright on the edge of the rattan chair, balancing the cup and saucer on one knee. The morning sun beat down upon the conservatory, Audrey’s mum could have grown tomatoes in here if she wanted. Not only did Mrs Beale have a conservatory, but also a separate room for eating in and another one for drawing.

“Pish posh,” Mrs Beale said, peering over the top of her long glass half-filled with a fruit medley and ice. The rest was gin. “Shuttlecocks and shoelaces! We didn’t bother with that in my day, we played barefoot with a dead sparrow.”

I glanced at Audrey, whose face was redder than one of the strawberries in her mother’s drink. “Mother,” she said. “You didn’t play badminton with a dead sparrow. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Mrs Beale slurped from her glass. “We did too, Little Miss Know-it-all.” She looked at me, one eyelash askew. “We couldn’t afford much when we were younger, Robert, so we had to make our own games. I’m sure you did the same?”

“Yes, Mrs Beale, we did.” I thought back to playing on building sites in the village where I grew up. The infilling took away trees and fields and replaced them with scaffolding to climb, foundation trenches to hide in and play war and portacabins whose roofs we jumped between years before anyone had heard of Parkour.

“Mother,” Audrey said. “You’re exaggerating. You went to Cheltenham Ladies College, you weren’t poor.” She rolled her eyes at me and mouthed,  “I’m sorry.”

Mrs Beale slurped again. The eyelash gave up holding on and fell into her glass. Mrs Beale stuck two fingers in and fished around until she pulled the lash out, happier than a trout fisherman landing a five-pounder.

“That’s what you think, smarty pants.” Mrs Beale looked at me. “I was the only one in my class without a pony at home.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to do.

“Everyone else went abroad for the summer holidays but I had to put up with two weeks in Torquay. Hmph.” Mrs Beale snorted and the other eyelash drooped. “English Riviera my…”

“Mother!” Audrey said. “One more swear word from you and we’ll leave.”

I took a sip of my tea, grateful I was driving and had an excuse not to drink this early.

“What type of drawing do you do?” I said, to interrupt the hateful silence.

“Drawing?” Mrs Beale said. “What do you mean?” She batted her eyelash at me and it joined its partner on the floor.

“You mentioned the drawing room on the way in, so I thought you drew.”

Mrs Beale snorted and her earrings jangled as her whole body shook with laughter. Audrey exchanged a glance with her mother and I saw the smirk.

My face reddened, and it had nothing to do with the heat.

(c) James Marshall, 2024

You can connect with James on LinkedIn, and sign up to his Substack here.

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This last poem, from Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, is a wonderful celebration of beauty. The difference here comes from the narrator’s perspective; while they see the subject as extraordinary, others might not notice the same brilliance. It’s a joyful reminder of how personal and unique our feelings and perceptions can be, and how they shape the way we see the world around us.

My Amazing Flower

Like new, fresh palm wine,
emitting thick, voluptuous, white foam,
your beauty sends out rowdy rays of sunshine.
like an avalanche of dews falling
from the sky early in the morning.
Like the melange of florins of a flower,
ribbons of love descending on your body
like confetti, washing over those who bow their heads,
ashamed of their culpable vulnerability.
Seeing you and seeing Heaven,
is wearing sunrise as eyeglasses.
You are a mountain without a standing stone,
but your tops and fringes are everywhere;
I see you from the precincts of my city,
where you are the breath of the sea
which has swallowed the river.
the ocean is a fraction of you,
and the universe is just a decimal;
even the ubiquitous sea is not deep enough
to understand the infinity of your beauty.
Like a mighty forest surrounding a country,
a river that runs through a continent,
your face is the sun that beams through it
and they feel it wherever they are.
Who amongst us sees a bunch of lusty apples
and prefer to suck a litany of littered lumps?
You’re streaming milk like raindrops,
the moon that drops in the middle of a forest,
the bitter kola sounds like a kinky apple;
I remind you that a river cannot flow
back to its source,
but runs through the lanes of eternity,
my jewel and amazing flower.

(c) Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, 2024

What a beautiful poem to end on! I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading November’s Showcases as much as I’ve loved curating them. A huge thank you to the team at Write On! for having me and, most importantly, to all the talented writers who shared their incredible work. Your words have made this month unforgettable.

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Hear extracts from Showcase in our podcast. Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify for Pocasters.

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