Lisa Sargeant

'Smut' can mean many things.Within the pages of this book you will find poetry, short stories, visual artworks and more, crafted by ARU students past and present. These diverse works have one thing in common - they all engage creatively with at least one of the many definitions of a single word: smut.Are you ready to see smut through new eyes?

As noted by Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Chris Beckett in his foreword, one of the key pleasures of this anthology is the range of different forms, subjects and styles: “Poetry, travelogue, a last will and testament, microfiction (nanofiction, even?) ... and – yeeeessss! – several pieces of science fiction.” The writers involved find themselves at the start of their careers, facing – as we all do – an uncertain future. But anxiety can spur the imagination if we let it, and these writers have chosen to do so. The result is variety and experimentation. Colour, darkness, familiar and alien landscapes, rifts in time and space, tricks of the light, memory and glossary, loss and longing.