Thank you for the Granta subscription. The second magazine arrived before I’d had a chance to finish reading the first. I suspect the third one will be here shortly, and the second is still in its wrapper. That’s shameful, I know. And it must look ungrateful, too.

But as you know, time has been scarce these past months — as has energy, which only is replenishing itself now as I begin to see the fruits of all my labour, all that anxiety. I wanted to wait for that sweet moment of relief before turning the words that you gifted me with all the attention and compassion that they deserve. That moment is around the corner, I begin to feel its beat through the small and deep dramas of these end-of-year days. The anthologies are stacked beside my bed, perfectly right-angled edges aligned perfectly right, like bricks, like they hold up the weight of how much we know about what words can do, have done for us. Thank you.