From the Editors

1st March 2024

Slightly Foxed Issue 81: From the Editors

In the spring of our twentieth anniversary year we’ve been feeling a little ruminative – looking back on the good times and all the fun we’ve had, but also remembering crises like the Covid lockdowns, when the whole world seemed out of joint, as it surely does at present. At difficult times like these it’s very clear from your messages how much the regular arrival of Slightly Foxed means to you and what a comfort reading and the sharing of reading can be. There’s nothing quite like a friendship formed over books – something Vesna Goldsworthy recalls in her piece on p.19 describing her meetings over many years with the novelist Graham Swift. There was, she says, always a certain reserve between them, but ‘it evaporated when we spoke about books, and those were always the best exchanges’.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st September 2023

Slightly Foxed Issue 79: From the Editors

New contributors to Slightly Foxed sometimes ask us which issue their piece is going to appear in and the truth is, we’re usually hard put to tell them in advance. One pleasure of SF is that we’re not bound by publication dates for new books, so we rarely plan a piece for a particular issue but instead welcome good contributions and select from what we have. We’ve always worked on the bran-tub principle that we’d like readers to dip in and find something unexpected that they wouldn’t normally have been looking for. But despite this, each issue does seem to come together with a particular atmosphere and character of its own.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st June 2023

Slightly Foxed Issue 78: From the Editors

The past few months have seen some significant comings and goings at Slightly Foxed. Sadly, we said goodbye to Anna (or rather au revoir – once a fox always a fox) who understandably felt it was time for a change after being with us for nearly fourteen years. Many of you will have spoken to Anna, who was loved by everyone for her kindness and her can-do attitude, and admired for her wide reading and literary taste, which she often shared on the podcast. Nothing was too much trouble for her, and we’re really going to miss her.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st March 2023

Slightly Foxed Issue 77: From the Editors

There’s something very particular about the quiet months after Christmas – a time to hibernate, turn round and generally take stock. That’s what we’ve been doing here at the Slightly Foxed office, tidying up after the Christmas rush, reviewing our plans for the coming year and watching spring gradually arrive in Hoxton Square as the daffodils begin to emerge and the cafés tentatively put out their tables.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st December 2022

Slightly Foxed Issue 76: From the Editors

This issue of Slightly Foxed comes with our very best wishes to you all from all of us here for Christmas and the coming year. However there’s no escaping the fact that these are anxious times, and we were touched by a reader in Australia who wrote to us recently: ‘I can only say, to all the Slightly Foxed team, that you are a saviour. Slightly Foxed has kept me in touch, kept me sane, made me relish the humour, the warmth, the quirky charm of the English way of doing things.’ Wherever you are in the world, we hope you feel the same.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
26th August 2022

Slightly Foxed Subscribers’ Writing Competition

We feel it’s time for another of our Writer’s Competitions. We’ve greatly benefited from them in the past, finding, predictably, that among our readers there are some very good writers. The competition is open to all current Slightly Foxed subscribers. The winner will receive a prize of £250 and the piece will be published in a future issue of the magazine. All entries should reach us by 15 January 2023.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st June 2022

Slightly Foxed Issue 74: From the Editors

Summer is here and the square outside has come alive again. There are people walking their dogs or enjoying the sunshine at tables outside the café opposite the office. It’s a peaceful scene, but it’s impossible to forget that far away though ever-present is this year’s ugly backdrop of the war in Ukraine, not to mention the violence and suppression of free speech in so many parts of the world. We’ve never taken ourselves too seriously at Slightly Foxed, seeing it as essentially a place where readers can relax, enjoy good writing and, we hope, have a laugh occasionally. But in these deeply worrying and isolating times, it’s the comforting sense of fellowship and connection through books that readers tell us they get from Slightly Foxed which seems especially important.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors
1st March 2022

Slightly Foxed Issue 73: From the Editors

After a long winter of disruptions, there’s definitely a feeling of spring in the air at Slightly Foxed. We know we’re not out of the woods yet where Covid is concerned, but the start of the year has been busy, and we’re still enjoying the novelty of meeting in the office instead of facing unflattering versions of ourselves on Zoom. Outside in the square the trees are just coming into bud, and the tatty old London pigeons are bowing and flirting on the ledge outside the office window.
- Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood
From the editors

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