Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s SPACE issue. From the very small to the enormity of our imaginations, essays grow from the furtive earth-bed of mushroom forests to the stars. Granville Carroll’s afro-futuristic cover artwork “Becoming” places us in space. John Angerson provides the obligatory rocket-propelled photos. Matilde Gattoni reminds us that one’s freedom to explore space can suddenly be taken away. The connection with space doesn’t stop there. Melissa Tuckman’s aptly titled poem “Space Junk” connects space debris to modern living. A new section on New Nature Writing probes the world beyond our urban confines. In the second outing for Decolonising Travel, there are excruciating, painful stories, sexual imaginings in the steam room, and personal reflections on historical ties to oppression; all whilst giving writers who have come through VONA/Faith Adiele’s writing programme space to share their work. We finish the issue with a stroll through London — the most ethnically diverse world capital — through the lens of Books Editor Nicolas D. Sampson.
...Join me inside a camouflaged turkey-hunting blind as I observe a pair of skittish belted kingfishers feeding their chicks tucked deep in an earthen burrow above Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Montana. Found across North America’s waterways, these jay-sized birds are known for their dazzling headfirst plunges to catch fish near the surface. Their rattling calls awaken us to the sensory beauty of watery homes. The females wear the namesake red belt and are more colorful than the males, an oddity in the bird world.
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