‘But now I stared into the face of Other Roisin, the Ro-bot, who wore my blue embroidered jacket… Her hair was smooth and unruffled, her skin without texture, as you might expect from an avatar who has never lived in three dimensions, who does not have wind, or rain, or hormonal acne to contend with. I noticed, zooming in, that she had two different eyebrow shapes, one arched, the other a smooth and narrow swoop. The eyes, though, were the most striking: beady and shiny and uniformly blue, without pupils. Glaring with the enthusiastic innocence of someone who has never lived, someone composed of algorithms.’
‘Amber flecks of distant houses were scattered through the dim black fields. By the time we turned off the motorway and began heading towards the Wicklow mountains in search of the wedding venue, the blue dot on Sarah’s maps app had turned grey.’
‘What Swift grasped with devastating clarity was that power does not always shout; it often speaks in the calm language of order, necessity, and public good, and in doing so renders its own cruelty intelligible, even acceptable.’
What makes Grossman’s journalism most disorienting as a historical record is not so much the horrors he describes as those he omits... This edition of From the Front Line is not only an astute account of the war but a fascinating study of Soviet deception.
For our next Second Tuesday Series event, we are delighted to welcome a panel of literary editors, critics and writers to discuss the ways in which what and how we read is changing.
On this month’s episode Nicole is joined by Niamh Boyce to read from and discuss her story ‘We Can’t Have Artists Losing Their Tempers’ published in Issue 54 Volume Two of The Stinging Fly magazine.
‘But now I stared into the face of Other Roisin, the Ro-bot, who wore my blue embroidered jacket… Her hair was smooth and unruffled, her skin without texture, as you might expect from an avatar who has never lived in three dimensions, who does not have wind, or rain, or hormonal acne to contend with. I noticed, zooming in, that she had two different eyebrow shapes, one arched, the other a smooth and narrow swoop. The eyes, though, were the most striking: beady and shiny and uniformly blue, without pupils. Glaring with the enthusiastic innocence of someone who has never lived, someone composed of algorithms.’
‘The smell on me is all chemicals, and it’s chapped hands that reach for the rum and coke. There’s a woman at the end of the bar who looks in a bad way, and I recognise her as Sam, the mother of the young woman whose blood I was just pulling from the floors.’
‘I know from the caravan beforehand that the villain wears more make-up than the maiden. Black pencil and they’ll twist the edges of your moustache, if you have one. To look grotesque and merciless, they said, it’s important.’
‘Cows turn their big faces, and I am afraid of how life goes on until we die. All those dead tucked into the ground as the ancient Mercedes purrs by.’
‘We resented the fact that she thought we would be impressed by Doug. And we also resented that we were, maybe, impressed by Doug.’
‘He brings his bottom lip over his top lip and makes it touch his small nose. It makes him look older somehow and like he’s disappointed in me. I remember feeling disappointed in my father when I asked him simple questions and received complicated answers.’
Niamh Boyce
The Stinging Fly Podcast
Susannah Dickey
The Stinging Fly Podcast
Róisín Leggett Bohan
The Stinging Fly Podcast
1st October 2026
25th September 2026
21st August 2026
‘But now I stared into the face of Other Roisin, the Ro-bot, who wore my blue embroidered jacket… Her hair was smooth and unruffled, her skin without texture, as you might expect from an avatar who has never lived in three dimensions, who does not have wind, or rain, or hormonal acne to contend with. I noticed, zooming in, that she had two different eyebrow shapes, one arched, the other a smooth and narrow swoop. The eyes, though, were the most striking: beady and shiny and uniformly blue, without pupils. Glaring with the enthusiastic innocence of someone who has never lived, someone composed of algorithms.’
‘Amber flecks of distant houses were scattered through the dim black fields. By the time we turned off the motorway and began heading towards the Wicklow mountains in search of the wedding venue, the blue dot on Sarah’s maps app had turned grey.’
‘What Swift grasped with devastating clarity was that power does not always shout; it often speaks in the calm language of order, necessity, and public good, and in doing so renders its own cruelty intelligible, even acceptable.’