Issue 31 Special Edition: Nude
"My mother had no signature lipstick brand or colour she routinely bought and used. The lipsticks in her collection were comprised mainly of Testers; freebies from her job as a cashier..."
Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.
Issue 31: Special Edition
Do you have more in your inbox than you can read in a day? In Issue 31 Special Edition, we’ve been sending you one piece at a time, rather than the entire issue at once. If you’d like to be considered for future publications, scroll down to learn more about KHÔRA’s 500 Words and KHÔRA’s Images.
“Nude” and the accompanying photograph are by South African writer and artist Robyn Perros. Robyn’s work has appeared in South Africa’s Short.Sharp.Stories Anthology (Fluid 2023), New Contrast Literary Journal, Isele Magazine, Alchemy Spoon, The Woolf, Decolonial Passage, Rat World, and Ons Klyntji zine, among others. Her novella manuscript, Choosing an Outfit for the End of the World, was longlisted for the 2023 Island Prize for Debut African Fiction. She has a Masters in Creative Writing, is currently a Ph.D. candidate, and occasionally teaches in the Rhodes University School of Journalism & Media Studies. She lives in Makhanda.
Check out the full Issue 31 Special Edition, and if you missed our previous issues, visit our Archive.
Nude by Robyn Perros
My mother never went anywhere without wearing lipstick. Whether she was going to the mall, the traffic department, or just popping into the corner shop for bread and milk — she refused to exit the car “without my face on.” My mother had no signature lipstick brand or colour she routinely bought and used. The lipsticks in her collection were comprised mainly of Testers; freebies from her job as a cashier at our local pharmacy. The Testers she was given were mostly tubes of the unsellable colours, or the expired ones, or the ones with naughty toddler bite marks in them. But no matter what the condition, brand, or offensive colour these Tester lipsticks my mother inherited were, she’d ensure she used each and every one, right to the end….
Read Nude.
Swim around in KHÔRA.
Artists and Writers
We’re looking for features and our future teams! To enter KHÔRA’s collaborative waters:
Writers, read about KHÔRA’s 500 Words here.
Artists, send your artwork to KHÔRA's Images here.
Team-based, collaborative, and curated, KHÔRA is a form that is continually opening. We invite you to join us in sustaining it together. We don't believe in rejections. KHÔRA’s 500 Words is about considering how multiple voices can be heard; how frameworks, traditions, and projects can inform each other; and how new perspectives emerge from collaboration and openness. If you are a visual artist or interested in sharing your artwork or images, ready about KHÔRA’s Images here.
Your words/images will always remain active in KHÔRA’s ocean, and you won’t ever receive a notice of rejection from us. We know this process is not perfect; we wish to stay open to the possibility that at any point, your work will be a fit for a curated issue or team collaboration. This doesn’t need to be a completed piece—think of it like a sample of your work at any length up to 500 words.
Once you send 500 Words, your work will remain in our inclusive and expansive space. You can send 500 Words more than once—there’s no limit to how many times you can send us new work; just no repeats, please. KHÔRA doesn’t publish previously published work, but feel free to share any 500 words you want as a sample (published or unpublished).
If you love what you’re seeing, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and KHÔRA will be back soon.
With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad