Tuesday 12th May 2026

The Source

May Morning

Smudged mascara and the curling of coffee steam. Small yawns and the shuffling of boots. Tangled hair plaited by the same girl from first-year, a crumbly pastry shared with...
Culture Elizabeth Bourn -

Sunday

That Sunday could arrive first-class, Wrapped in tissue and stickers with minimalist logo. Sent anonymously (from...
The Source Rory Maguire -

Peacocks

Their grounds abut a large colonial on Staten Island: Five or six of them Swaggering along...
The Source Rory Maguire -

The day she died

  ...
The Source Nat Conboy -
Latest

Death’s Lament

Please, I have done what you asked.  I burned it all for her. I wrench the parchment from my pocket, fingers shaking, chest convulsing, screams eviscerating my...

And she woke up…

Yesterday I thought I saw you between blinks of an eye: a lecture together and notes left behind for curls and a sharp jawline; the same old eyes...

Peach Juice and Other Inappropriate Attachments

My hostel sheets smell like regret and Chanel No. 5 sprayed like insecticide. I suspect it was me. The scent now mingles with the...

A Sunday in the Park with Marianne.

She wears no rings. Her ears are double-pierced, hanging with astrolabes and star-studded. She wears two necklaces—one is a golden cross, and the second...

Magnolias

Slender boughs tremulous under the weight of tight-lipped buds, pink like dawn’s blushing glow, she peeps from the garden, standing tiptoe, feels the sun’s caress. Like the...

A Spell For Students 

Reading unfinished? Essay half written? Lectures not attended? Then this is the spell you need, guaranteed to make you succeed at your degree* Under the...

Dear Reader,

It has been so long since last I felt  your fingertips tracing my pages, cascading shivers across my spine.  I have missed your smile, and the way your...

Fresh-water

I am no longer a mother—I have surrendered my body to the surgeon’ssea shells and fish bones; and my sonto the teal press of...

‘Pour summer in a glass’: retracing Dandelion Wine

“You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill...

Perhaps, Oxford

We met at a Latin meeting hosted by the Oxford Ancient Languages Society at University College. I signed up for Latin partly out of curiosity,...

How to Say Goodbye to the Cities You’ve Loved

For those of us between borders, home is not fixed; it’s cumulative.

W.H. Auden at the Bus Stop: In Praise of Intellectual Delay

It’s a damp Tuesday afternoon, and W.H. Auden is waiting patiently at the bus stop...

A Pelican Crossing Somewhere on Green Dragon Lane

"The passage of time is a bloodthirsty hound."

Easter Eggs

"I’m really sorry I missed your house. Even the Easter Bunny can make mistakes."

Hand over Heart

"So bite the heel that walked you home in the rain"

Copies

"I want them, long after I leave, to remain together."

love letter

"a stamp can’t be used again, only kept or discarded."

The Longest Goodbye

Oxford became a home I hadn’t known I was missing – a place that understood me without asking. 

The Ghosts She Felt Acutely

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...

Letter from the Orient

This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate...
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