Hello and welcome!
époque press is an independent publisher based between Brighton and Dublin established to promote and represent the very best in new literary talent.
Through a combination of our main publishing imprint and our online ezine we aim to bring inspirational and thought provoking work to a wider audience.
Our main imprint is seeking out new voices, authors who are producing high-quality literary fiction and who are looking for a partner to help realise their ambitions. Our commitment is to fully consider all submissions on literary merit alone and to provide a personal response.
Our ezine will showcase a combination of the written word, visual and aural art forms, bringing together artists working in different mediums to encourage and inspire new perspectives on specific themes.
For details of how to submit your work to us for consideration please follow the submissions guidelines and for all other enquiries please email info@epoquepress.com
Hello and welcome!
époque press is an independent publisher based between Brighton and Dublin established to promote and represent the very best in new literary talent.
Through a combination of our main publishing imprint and our online ezine we aim to bring inspirational and thought provoking work to a wider audience.
Our main imprint is seeking out new voices, authors who are producing high-quality literary fiction and who are looking for a partner to help realise their ambitions. Our commitment is to fully consider all submissions on literary merit alone and to provide a personal response.
Our ezine will showcase a combination of the written word, visual and aural art forms, bringing together artists working in different mediums to encourage and inspire new perspectives on specific themes.
For details of how to submit your work to us for consideration please follow the submissions guidelines and for all other enquiries please email info@epoquepress.com
époque press
pronounced: /epƏk/
definition: /time/era/period
Ian C Smith
Short Story // Fathers, Sons
époque press
pronounced: /epƏk/
definition: /time/era/period
Weekend wrestler, Father pretends down there on the carpet. Straddling his chest, hard rubber saddle of sinew, I kneel on those dangerous biceps. He laughs. Mother rattles the kitchen seeking a path to the man’s heart on which I squirm. Up close, mirrored in the same blue eyes, a startling intimacy, I see perfect miniatures of myself, start to explain, voice rising. But he tricks me again, springs clear from where we play, skin against skin, victory a breath away.
High on hope, I hold my breath. Below, my boys, manhood addicts, yell; Dad, we give up. You win. Mum’s made lunch. Poised to plunge into their gang, a stunt, to drop from filtered sunbeams, a bold paladin’s surprise ending after eluding their long search, a chevalier for once in their eyes, I am just feet above them, a breath away, balanced on my perch.
From beneath the bough they shoot off into shadow, sudden, our stout melaleuca’s papery trunk shielding me, riveted in time. I planned a gymnast’s landing, a soft thunk startling them, but their white light moved on before I knew, transient kin, soon gone, that long-legged crew.
DNA’s heirloom
rambunctious conveyed ethos
riding wild years’ winds
Ian C Smith’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds, cordite, The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Southword, & The Stony Thursday Book. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.
Of the motivation behind this piece, Ian says:
‘I've long been interested in genealogy - I have four or five titles with variations of this word - and I see this as homo sapiens' germination, my own relationships with my parents, and my children motivating me to write. I even see the haibun form as appropriate, the haiku like a seed.’