It’s wonderful to see Still is still being shared, and as a result also being reviewed. Two intelligent reviews appeared in November in the Short Review and in literary magazine Wasafiri.
Sara Baume, the Short Review, 13 November:
‘Inviting writers to compose stories as a specific response is risky business for an editor, but Bakker has been spectacularly lucky with his twenty-six contributors… Not one photograph shows a person, yet the text brims with people. Each story is an acknowledgement that even the slightest detail is the trace of a life. As a whole, the collection explores how every keyhole and windowsill and lampshade give rise to a plethora of associations and memories…This collection is the first print publication by Negative Press London and it sets a high standard for a sort-of new genre. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I just didn’t have the heart to scribble notes or fold the page’s corners down; Still is simply too attractive and unique a book.’
Sunil Chauhan, literary magazine Wasafiri, issue 76, published November 2013:
‘Loss, isolation and loneliness are never far from the page, the inability to forget a frequent thread. Many of the authors use the town hall as a muse rather than a setting. Sharing a tartness of tone, these tales are quizzical, haunting, occasionally abrupt but mostly as teasing as the accompanying images, often concluding with a lingering shot of pain.’