The Transformative Power of Tattoo: short stories & poetry

This unique collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry brings together a diverse group of writers who delve into tattoos in terms of class, body image, history, empowerment and transformations. It's an investigation into why people get tattoos and how they transform a person's life.

Our 19 contributors are debut and award-winning. Their work includes memoir, transgressive fiction, horror, magical realism, sci-fi, literary fiction, poetry and personal essays. We have published a number of them in our previous anthologies including Liam Hogan, Karla Linn Merrifield, Claire Askew, Julian Bishop and Michal Kamil Piotrowski.

Here's an excerpt:

"Growing up, tattoos, alongside piercings and brightly coloured hair, were absolutely anathema. The reasons were many and varied: I would be rejected by polite society; if I ever got arrested, I would be easily identifiable by the authorities; no-one would ever hire me; it would signify emotional instability and arrested development; I would be perceived as a n'er-do-well, a reprobate, a criminal; I should not disrespect my body in this way; it would attract the wrong kind of associates... I could probably keep adding to this list of introjects and conditions of worth that shaped my own distorted beliefs about tattoos for many years." - Liz Beth Turner

Here's the full list of contributors:

Claire Askew, Julian Bishop, Valerie Bence, Harriet Bradshaw, Maisie Brown, Meredith Davidson, Daniela Esposito, Callum Henderson, Liam Hogan, Erin Hosfield, Maria Jastrzębska, Di Lebowitz, Dominic Lyne, Louisa Mastromarino, Karla Linn Merrifield, Michal Kamil Piotrowski, Emily Ricard, Liz Beth Turner and Sabrina Woolf.

We are delighted to share with you their take on the tattoo.

xx guts