Cover picture (c) J. G. Betts. Three young herring gulls put their best feet forward.
Here, in the last month of another year with too much news of the wrong sort, LUPO emerges once more, hopefully to shed a little light and cheer amid the global gloom. Issue 72 has a vein of fantasy running through it, perhaps in reaction to the fantastic times, with the perennial Nessie of the Loch, a quetzalcoatlus, a roaring Lion, dancing angels, perpetual motion in literary endeavour and more. There is also an invasion of ursines, plus a nod to the great Jane from New Zealand, travel tales, a pole-dancer, discarded clothing, double-decker memories, Cinderella, and much else besides. The award for most unusual title goes to Jonathan Humble.
From a baker’s dozen of brevity in Interval One to some longer lucubrations in Interval Four, this quarter’s intervalnauts are Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Damian Balassone, Bruce Bennett, Jerome Betts, Paul Burgess, Pat D’Amico, Tracy Davidson, B. N. Faraj, Jeff Gallagher, Will Ingrams, Steven Kent, Carl Kinsky, Bruce McGuffin, Lindsay McLeod, L.A. Mereoie, Jake Murel, Michael Pettit, Tony Peyser, John Whitney Steele, Alex Steelsmith, Michael Swan, Peggy Verrall and Russel Winick.
Rubbing their necks after craning them at classical statues and others are the seven winners of Competition 71, Jane Blanchard, Claire Booker, C.R. Edenhill, Julia Griffin, Mike Mesterton-Gibbons, Robert Schechter, and Gail White.
A half-dozen names new to LUPO are welcome aboard, that is to say Martin Briggs, B. N. Faraj, Shawn M. Klimek, Lindsay McLeod, Michael Pettit and Julie Steiner.
It is sad to have to record the death on November the 12th of Edmund Conti (1929-2025) the genial American who contributed his wry, dry, quirkily entertaining verse here between 2015 and 2019. On the other hand, it is a pleasure to salute George Simmers and Snakeskin, (where some of Edmund Conti’s work also appeared) which celebrates thirty years of publication in its December issue.
Thanks to Heather Simpson for the use of photographs, and to Melissa Balmain for revealing in the first offering of this quarterly gallimaufry that cilantro is not something squeezed from a tube but what on this side of the watery divide is known as coriander. Enjoy, with LUPO’s best wishes for 2026 to all its contributors and readers, home-grown, far-flung, regular, intermittent or rare. 