Over 11 issues, the magazine has published work by 84 different writers from 6 different countries (Canada, UK, US, Australia, Finland and Italy), writers Philip Quinn and John Swan having both appeared 3 times. The magazine survives without arts funding or advertising revenue and relies on subscriptions, orders and subsidy through editor, Firth’s day job.

Issue #10 kicks off with gusto with ‘The Hard Life,’ Tony D’Souza’s atmospheric and insightful story of casual labourers working for building firms around the West Bank and the new settlement of East Jerusalem. The story highlights well the prejudices between the foreign workers from around the world, their contempt for tourists and their serial seduction of the local girls and attractive travellers.

“…we were thespians, actors after pussy and they’d touch our shoulders to comfort us, these dumb sisters from home, pet our dirty hair.”

Jason Heroux’s ‘Kingston’ is a subtly bittersweet story of two former acquaintances meeting, one working in a menial waitressing job, the other, initially pretending she works in a high powered office job but actually does nights in a massage parlour. The restrained writing style really evokes the loneliness and underlying unhappiness of the two characters well, with a great use of pauses and awkward moments.

Anya Wassenberg’s ‘Little Finger’ is a brilliantly tense and claustrophobic piece of writing focussing on a day in the life of two alcoholics as they face a day sober whilst preparing to entertain the woman’s brother and sister-in-law. The comforting banality of preparing the quiche and having stress relieving sex are juxtaposed against the sudden resurgence of an incestuous relationship between the brother and sister. A truly outstanding piece of writing.

Black Bile Press regular, Bill Brown’s ‘When Jupiter Aligned with Mars’ is a grittily erotic tale about a relief janitor who gets his own form of relief from cottaging in a public toilet near the school. Although I felt the ending was a little weak, Brown is really at home writing erotic prose, as he also proved with his story in Matthew Firth’s excellent ‘Grunt and Groan’ anthology.

Zsolt Alapi’s ‘Eva’ is a balmy, erotic tale which describes a young boy’s burgeoning sexual feelings for his cousin, the Eva of the title, who also acts as “a little wife” to his father. The scenes on a raft in the middle of a river where she teases and makes him touch her, then pulls away and scorns him, and in the final scene where she feeds him stew are gloriously sensual to the extent the reader can almost taste the food and feel the heat from the girl. The atmosphere is developed well and the story is reminiscent of early Ian McEwan.

Front & Centre #10 also features a selection of reviews of small press books. All in all, Matthew first has proved again why he is one of Canada’s foremost literary editors. Sexy and sassy.

Laura Hird is the Orange and Whitbread nominated author of the collection, ‘Nail and Other Stories’ and novel, ‘Born Free.’ Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies internationally. Her new collection of short stories is due to be published by Canongate Books in May 2005. She runs and edits her own loosely arts-related website on which she seeks out and publishes new poetry, short stories, reviews, interviews etc. She was born and lives in Edinburgh.