Jacob Silkstone Contact
I grew up on the campus of an international school in Wales, sometimes looking out through a micro-society where dozens of languages were spoken and cultural boundaries were gradually eroded, and sometimes introspectively drawn in towards rural South Wales and the woods, the fields, the beaches.
In many ways, writing seems to be similarly poised between inner and outer worlds – creativity always involves solitude, and yet the best writing requires an audience and seeks to understand the world in order to reflect it. Being a part of the team at The Missing Slate gives me the chance to move between those inner and outer worlds, promoting creative work from multiple countries and cultures to a truly international audience.
Recently, I have lived in Britain, Bangladesh and Norway. There have been times when writing has seemed an inadequate way of responding to the world, or a blunt tool of privilege — at best glorious but ephemeral, “a violin in the void.” And yet what we’re doing at The Missing Slate never seems meaningless: already, we’ve published poets in exile, introduced new work in translation, given writers an audience that they would otherwise have struggled to find. As Managing Editor, I will do everything I can to make sure The Missing Slate continues to make new writing available to the widest possible audience, and to expand our coverage of work in translation — showcasing stories and poems from around the world for English-speaking readers.
Contact Jacob if you are a translator looking for wider readership, a publisher requesting reviews, or a travel writer. Jacob is the Managing Editor for Poetry and Reviews.