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.
...Once there was a writer who lived in Mexico City who despaired of his calling. Most days he rose toward noon and went for a coffee in Roma or Condesa and wrote. In the week preceding he had sat in a number of cafes in these neighbourhoods drafting a story of a few thousand words about a writer who lost his livelihood over some past offence newly come to light. Soon he was convinced the piece was drivel, heavy-handed, self-righteous, dare he imagine self-exculpatory. Moreover, he had stooped to satire when his task was to inspire a love of life and nothing less. By Thursday he was feeling fairly disgusted with himself.
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