Join us in congratulating our wonderful writers for their Best of the Net anthology award nomination!

Best of the Net is an annual anthology celebrating literature published in the online small press. 

​Best of luck to every writer!

Touch, by Sherry Abaldo
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/touch-by-sherry-abaldo
 
Flight Interrupted, by Lynn Axelrod
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/kitty-north-ekphrastic-writing-responses-curated-by-kate-copeland
 
Eros at the End: a Meditation on Last Things, by Stevie B.
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/kitty-north-ekphrastic-writing-responses-curated-by-kate-copeland
 
Snow Dance, Russia, 19th Century, by Gabrielle Langley
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/snow-dance-russia-19th-century-by-gabrielle-langley
Canopic Jars, by Brendon McLeod
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/canopic-jars-by-brendon-mcleod
 
Rupture / Re-creation, by Nina Nazir
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/delphine-derobert-masure-ekphrastic-writing-responses-curated-by-kate-copeland
 
Phantom Trees, by Maureen Sauvain O’Connor
 
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/phantom-trees-by-maureen-sauvain-oconnor
 
We Could Live There, Christina, by Jeffrey Skinner
​
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/we-could-live-there-christina-by-jeffrey-skinner

Early Musings
 
In front of the mirror, I'd step into a liminal space where every transformation was possible. I'd see my hair grow at will, covering my budding chest the way Saint Agnes' hair spread over her nudity. I'd hold an imaginary scalpel to sculpt a thinner waist, redress a curb, and test ways to apply kohl and eyeshadow to create almond-shaped eyes, projecting an invisible blueprint for a future self.
 
Facing my complicit audience, I'd rehearse overheard fragments of conversations. My mom's closest friends remained single, never wearing makeup, yet they were a repository of perpetual beauty secrets, offering me an invaluable vademecum.  
 
Avid fans of Historia Magazine, they shared a fascination with Mata Hari's seduction, Marie Antoinette's pastoral obsessions, and Catherine the Great's young lovers. I drank their words like ambrosia. Mom was particularly fond of Cleopatra's donkey milk baths, which Poppaea Sabina, Nero's wife, emulated by keeping a herd of donkeys. Even Napoleon's sister, Pauline, resorted to that daily ritual. No wonder Canova immortalized her in a reclined semi-nude Carrara marble sculpture, its luster reminiscent of her well-kept skin. 
 
I listened religiously for years and tried various concoctions for hair and face masks, using egg yolks, egg whites, olive oil, castor oil, yogurt, and honey, until the day I realized these recipes hadn't worked on their ardent advocates. That's when my conversations with the mirror took a different turn. 
 
Hedy Habra

This poem was first published at MasticadoresUSA.
​
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. Her latest poetry collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?, won International Poetry Book Awards and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer and USA Best Book Awards. The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award, and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. She is a twenty-five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and a recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award. https://www.hedyhabra.com/

The Online Creative Residency run by Europeana - Europe’s digital platform for cultural heritage - brings students and emerging professionals who want to gain storytelling skills together with expert mentors in a range of formats, including creative writing. The theme uniting their work for 2026 was science. 
 
From inventions and inventors, through to discoveries both big and small, and things that make our lives better - or worse - science is the language that explains our world.
 
This year, the residency looked at how science shapes us, and used cultural heritage to question, interrogate, or muse upon how science sees and configures everything around us - our bodies, food, nature, time, and society. What can we learn from the past? What will we see in our future? What can looking at science in a creative way teach us about the nature of humankind?
 
Jana Gelder, Sofia Di Vito and Chiara Gottardo responded to science-themed artworks on Europeana to create new stories, and we’re delighted and grateful for their writing to be published on The Ekphrastic Review.

Beth Daley, Europeana Foundation, Audience Engagement, Editorial Adviser

**

About her project, "Of Jasmine Flowers and Woven Screams," Chiara says, "Land, belonging, and the ways we carry stories across generations have always fascinated me. When I saw this year’s residency theme, I challenged myself to explore how these interests could connect with science, while also engaging with European cultural archives. During my time living in Jordan, I became deeply interested in Palestinian history and Tatreez, the traditional embroidery that preserves memory, identity, and resistance. In this story, I use embroidery as a bridge between science and cultural heritage: a form of 'DNA on cotton' that transmits information across generations, cultures, and time."

Of Jasmine Flowers and Woven Screams

​“Don’t worry, it’s in your DNA.”

You used to tell me all the time. I wish it was true. If it was, I should be able to repair this little hole I discovered in my shirt this morning. Lately, I have found myself thinking about you a lot. Last week my friend and I went to Al-Salt, a small city near Amman, and visited a history museum. I walked past a black dress, beautifully embroidered. I imagined how much you would have loved it. The guide told us that it was a traditional Palestinian embroidery, called Tatreez.

“They used to embroider flowers, plants, and animals that were part of the Palestinian natural landscape”  he explained in Arabic, while my friend was translating. “In this way, just by looking at the dress, it was possible to trace the marital and economic status of the seamstress, as well as her regional background.”

He then pointed at some patterns in the dress in front of us: “See those? Orange blossoms. They tell us the embroiderer was from Beit Dajan, near Jaffa.” 

He went on to tell us how the village flourished in the 19th century because of its orange groves. After 1948, it was renamed Beit Dagon by Israeli settlers, and its inhabitants were prevented from returning. They ended up in refugee camps, and dresses with complex and intricate embroidery such as the one in front of us have not been made since then. Even though the guide was speaking Arabic, I could perceive the bitterness in his voice. I didn't understand his words, but grief rarely needs translation. Those stitches were telling a different story from your embroideries, but they shared the same grammar. Maybe that’s why I stayed there for a while. I thought about all the beautiful dresses you used to sew. Palestinians embroidered their roots, the love for their land, their memory. Every stitch carried a story: it was like their DNA on cotton, transmitting information across generations. But you, nonna, what were you trying to say? What was your story? 

At the museum, looking more closely at the orange blossom embroidery on the dress, I thought I could smell its perfume. It transported me back to your bedroom. Everything there smelled of flowers, as did you. I remembered how, when I asked you why, you took off your bra and jasmine flowers fell on the floor. “It’s an old trick to always smell good,” you told me. When you were diagnosed with a breast tumour and got a mastectomy, I never dared to ask you to show me again. But for a long time, I wondered if you kept hiding petals there regardless. 

Apparently, together with my supposed ability to hold a needle, I also inherited from you a great passion for storytelling (as well as your ugly feet, if you allow me to say so; I would indeed have preferred your blue eyes). When I was a child I imagined each story as a red string connecting us all in a tightly woven net. I believed that if I could weave those tales, I would see the threads of our family, like spirals of DNA. I asked you why you had never become a seamstress. You answered me the way you always did by telling me a story. 

“I was living in Rome then, your grandfather had been deployed there and my daughter, your mother, was only four. Every afternoon I would take her to Piazza di Spagna just to look at the shop windows. It was there that I saw for the first time the shop of the Sorelle Fontana. I still remember walking into the shop: the noise from the square disappeared, just as if I had stepped into a church. The lady there asked me if I was looking for something and I couldn’t even answer because I was so in awe. She complimented my dress and your mother's. Did you make them yourself? she asked. I answered her yes and she told me they were looking for a new seamstress in the atelier. If I wanted to come the next day, they would offer me the job.”

“And? Did they?”

“I never went,” you answered me softly. 

I wanted to ask you why, but I felt the question withering like a flower in my throat.

“It’s in your DNA,” you always used to say.  

Then it’s probably better you can’t see me now, lying on my bed, hiding from the ferocious sun of Amman, trying, without success, to thread a needle. You would have done it so quickly. Even when you got older, and your hands would tremble too much to sew, if I held them still you could do it in only a few seconds. And the proud look on your face afterwards! It only lasted a short while, before you would turn sad again, take the first rosary you could reach and start praying and praying. Sometimes I thought you were praying to be able to sew when you got into Paradise. You would make a hell of a suit for God, I am sure. 

“Nonna, tell me again the story of the nightgown,” I used to ask you.

You would start in the same way, each time. “I was only fifteen and the war was still going. But not for long. One day, the allies came and they landed right near our home, falling from the sky. I kept my brothers inside; we were alone while my parents were at work. They were so excited: the war to us didn’t mean much action, just little food and thin faces. The soldiers went on their way, leaving the parachutes behind in the fields. As the bigger sister, I had to take care of my brothers and help around the house, so I learned how to sew when I was little. With six brothers there was always a need for repairing socks. But I wanted to do more than that. When I saw their parachutes I had an idea. That night, while everyone was sleeping, I went outside. It was pitch dark. I was so scared, I could hear my heart throbbing. I took the parachute fabric and brought it home.”

That was the moment of the story when you would stand up, go to your wardrobe, and take out your nightgown. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my twelve years of life: it seemed to be made from a cloud, white and soft. It had puffy sleeves, a little collar, and most importantly, at least in my eyes, many ribbons. You would let me touch it, and once you even let me try it on. It was so big! I couldn’t wait to grow up to fit in it. I asked if you would leave it to me after you were gone. You didn’t answer. You took your box with all the yarns and thimbles and went back to trying to teach me how to sew myself. I can’t recall when you stopped trying. I wish you hadn’t. This little hole in my shirt seems so much bigger now. You would have smiled and scolded me a little and in a few minutes given my shirt back, perfectly repaired, without expecting thanks. 

I gave up trying to repair my shirt and threw it onto the floor. Tomorrow I'll take it to the tailor in Jabal Webdeh. He is Palestinian, like many people in Amman. Maybe I'll ask him more about tatreez. As I thought back to the museum visit last week, the black embroidered dress came vividly to mind. The guide's words echoed in my head once again.

“During the Intifada in the late '80s and early '90s, wearing these dresses became a form of resistance: to defy Israel’s ban on the public display of the Palestinian flag, women stitched maps or symbols of Palestine or simply used the colours of the flag. Tatreez was a daily reminder of where they come from, of their heritage, of their struggles and resistance. It was...” my friend struggled to find the right translation, “a woven scream against the constant pressure to silence their voices and collective memory.” 

A woven scream. I imagined thousands of voices stitched into the cotton, refusing to be silenced. The sorrow behind it. I never thought of your nightgown as a scream. More as a delicate song or little poem. But all those ribbons might have tricked me, maybe they were a disguise. What were you trying to scream, what were you resisting? Was it because grandfather would never allow you to work as a seamstress as it was not respectable for a wife of a lieutenant? Was it a scream against death and the fear of being forgotten? If so, I wish I could answer you now and reassure you. How I see you every time I take a needle in my hand, or I have a hole in a sleeve, or I smell jasmine. You are in the air, and in every hole, even in this little one in my shirt right now, filling the spaces of my memory. 

Some families pass down blue eyes. 

Others pass down a love for stories (and an ugly pair of feet). 
​
I consider myself lucky.
​
Chiara Gottardo

Chiara Gottardo has loved writing for as long as she can remember, but for a while life got in the way: law school, work in international relations, and, more generally, trying to survive and thrive in a messed-up world. Living in Jordan for a year brought her back to writing as a way of reconnecting with her roots. This year, she finally decided to put this love of hers out into the world. She writes stories about memory, childhood, family, generations, and belonging. Her work has appeared in Italian online magazines. This is her first time writing in English and hopefully not the last.

And What Are You Looking At?

And what are you looking at, man dressed in
a gray suit, loose blue tie, tight trousers standing
alone in this museum room staring at me.

Is it my strapless, tight black velvet dress,
cinched at the waist with red and gold, that
may be falling down?​

My hair? It’s longer than you can see,
actually auburn, which, as you may know,
is much sexier and more daring than red.

Are you thinking about how my daughter
Salome demanded the head of John the Baptist?
Relax, that could never happen. After all,

I’m only pretending to be Herodiade;
it was Julia Romani’s idea. In truth, 
I’m the artist and model in one.

Those glasses make you look profound, wise.
Even attractive.  Be straight with me. What 
color are my eyes? Is it hard to see them?

Romani painted them in shadow, to
make me appear enigmatic to viewers
like you. After all, a mystery is always

more alluring, don’t you agree? I see
your smile now; you are becoming more
alive, indeed!

What about my lips? Does the colour match
the long tresses of my hair? You’re still mute,
stunned by how my appearance in oil can speak.

What if I were to walk out of this frame
right now, glide over to where you’re standing,
tell you to your face that you inflame me?

Mary K. Lindberg
​
​NB: Herodiade is the Biblical wife of Herod ll, rule of Judea, and mother of Salome (15 BC-39 BC).

Mary K. Lindberg explores links between art, music, dance, literature and nature, as well as reviving Pompeii’s victim’s of the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption in her poetry collection Dance of Atoms (Oakledge Press, December 2025). Poems published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Gallery&Studio, Evening Street Review, TER. Member-of-the-Month, Poetry Society of NY, December 2025. Grand Prize, Dancing Poetry Contest (2021). Prizes in Ina Coolbrith Circle contests. Chapbook, The Tang of Glue (Puddinghouse, 2006). She enjoys the challenges of ekphrastic writing.

​The Online Creative Residency run by Europeana - Europe’s digital platform for cultural heritage - brings students and emerging professionals who want to gain storytelling skills together with expert mentors in a range of formats, including creative writing. The theme uniting their work for 2026 was science. 
 
From inventions and inventors, through to discoveries both big and small, and things that make our lives better - or worse - science is the language that explains our world.
 
This year, the residency looked at how science shapes us, and used cultural heritage to question, interrogate, or muse upon how science sees and configures everything around us - our bodies, food, nature, time, and society. What can we learn from the past? What will we see in our future? What can looking at science in a creative way teach us about the nature of humankind?
 
Jana Gelder, Sofia Di Vito and Chiara Gottardo responded to science-themed artworks on Europeana to create new stories, and we’re delighted and grateful for their writing to be published on The Ekphrastic Review.

Beth Daley, Europeana Foundation, Audience Engagement, Editorial Adviser

**

Sofia says, "’The Magician and the Scientists' is a conversation between three characters: a magician, a 19th-century astronomer, and Lisa, a scientist from our century. Each character represents something different. The magician embodies a belief in astrology and magic, in contrast with the astronomer’s rigid approach, who believes only in the power of science. However, both views are extreme and reductive interpretations of reality. Lisa, on the other hand, challenges their gender stereotypes and rigid beliefs, finding a new way of seeing and telling the story of science."

​The Magician and the Scientists
 
Lisa: I hope this isn’t a bad idea. I mean, of course it is. I have generated, with an AI program, a simulation of the personalities of a magician from the Middle Ages and a famous astronomer of the 19th century. The algorithm also created their holograms. It’s like I have brought them back to life. What could go wrong? Literally everything. Also, I’m not allowed to use this AI machine at the laboratory I work in…so I also have to be fast. My supervisor will really go crazy if she catches me!

Magician: What is this place? Where are we?

Lisa: Hello! Nice to meet you. Sorry if I was a little bit dramatic there; I’ve been a bit stressed out lately! I am Lisa, by the way, and this is a laboratory in the Astronomical Research Centre of London. 

Astronomer: Sorry, but I don’t think I’m following you. I don’t remember anything. How did I get here?

Lisa: I have brought you here thanks to an ultimate generation technology that in your centuries you couldn’t even imagine. You are not real; you are holograms created by a program we usually use to predict what aliens on other planets might look like. We still haven’t found evidence of extraterrestrial life, but we are working on it.

Astronomer: This is absurd! I can’t believe my ears.  Holograms, aliens, and most of all…women in laboratories! Do you think I am a fool, woman? I am one of the most important astronomers of England, but what am I saying? Of England? Of the whole world! My partner and I, the Lord of Rosse, were the first ones to observe nebulae and stars at the edge of our Universe. How dare you talk to me in such a manner, lady?

Magician: I don’t know you, young man, but it should be me asking you about your manners. You should have some respect for this witch. She must be very powerful if she could bring us here.  I know because I have never managed to enter the alternative reality and talk to the dead ones, even if I am the most famous magician in London. If you consider that she’s a woman, her results are even more impressive.

Lisa: What? This is not magic! This is science. I’m not a witch, and this isn’t an alternative dimension. You are just a simulation generated by Artificial Intelligence. You are not ghosts or spirits.

Magician: I don’t understand…that’s impossible.

Astronomer: Yes, as I was saying. A woman could never do this.

Lisa: Wait! Let’s put aside for a moment your very misogynistic comments since I need your help, and as I have said, we are running out of time. In the 21st century, people don’t believe in magic anymore, and people who practice witchcraft or believe in astrology are few and far between. I can assure you this is not magic, but I don’t think that a magician from the Middle Ages could ever really understand.

Magician: Where are the Middle Ages?

Lisa: Oh God…  

Astronomer: It’s the historical period you come from…if you are even a real magician, I’m not sure I believe anything at all right now. But how do you know me, young woman?

Lisa: I know you very well. I’m afraid to say you died at a young age, but you are part of history books. You are like a pop star for astronomers.

Astronomer: What do you mean, died at a young age? And what is a pop star? Have you found some new kind of stars that pop or something?

Lisa: What? No! I forgot you are from the 19th century.

Astronomer: Well, let’s go back to the “died at a young age” thing.

Lisa: Nevermind. The point is that I’m an astronomer myself, and in two days I will hold my first conference about a study I have conducted on the planet Venus. 

Astronomer: A lady being a scientist? I knew that society would have evolved, but I couldn’t imagine even in my darkest dreams that a woman could have become a scientist. Science…it’s for men! 

Lisa: Hey! I want to remind you that I am the one who brought you here, so show some respect! 

Magic: She’s right, young man. Let this woman talk.

Lisa: I was saying that I have this public conference to hold, and a lot of teenagers will be in the audience as well. My research is focused on the transit of Venus to test a new imaging technique capable of detecting tiny atmospheric changes. The results could improve future observations of potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting distant stars.

Magician: Sorry, I didn’t understand a single word.

Astronomer: So you definitely are a magician from the Middle Ages.

Lisa: The point is that I don’t know how to talk about my work. I don’t know how to talk about science at all. I don’t want it to look like something plain and cold. I don’t want to see people look at the stars like they are just objects in the sky. But I also want to be precise, specific, and consistent. You are a famous magician who could inspire people and make stars and planets interesting to them. You are a famous and important astronomer. You have two different points of view, but maybe they could merge. So my question is. How should I talk about Venus?

Magician: Well, this is interesting. I am much older than you, and also wiser, so I will give you the correct answer. You should talk about how Venus, not just a planet but a goddess, influences our lives. She makes people fall in love, dance and sing and…

Astronomer: This is absurd! Miss Lisa, listen to me and not to this imposter. I am a great astronomer, and I will give you the right answer.

Magician: Behold, young man. In my century, people used to respect the elderly, and I’m not just some old fool; I am the greatest magician of my gene...

Astronomer: Yes, yes…we know. 

Lisa: Can you just stop being this childish? I can’t believe you think it’s women who are too emotional. Anyway, what were you saying?

Astronomer: Miss Lisa, you should describe the transit of Venus in the sky, maybe presenting some drawings of the planet; this will surely keep the public engaged. Venus, my dear magician, is just a planet, not a goddess. I know it: I have observed it with my own telescope and also drawn with my own hands what I have seen.

Magician: You have seen how she moves, but can you say why?

Astronomer: Of course I can, since I have studied the laws of nature. But what about you?

Magician: I bend the laws of nature to my will; I am a magician, or at least I was…one of the most famous in London; everybody came to me for help or for advice, and magic always showed I was right.

Scientist: You almost made me laugh with these stories.

Magician: If you are so smart and better than everyone else, tell me: how can your observations be free from error?

Scientist: Because they can be tested. If I claim that Venus will transit across the Sun, anyone with the proper instruments can verify it. Science does not ask for faith.

Magician: No, but it asks for trust in those instruments, and in those who built them.

Lisa: Please stop being so dramatic! I must admit that this AI-generated simulation is really impressive; it depicts perfectly how men always fight to prove they are better than each other. 

Magician and Astronomer in chorus: How dare you?!

Lisa: It’s true. You are too stubborn, and each one of you wants to prove to the other that he’s right, without even looking for dialogue. This isn’t appropriate behaviour for a scientist or for a magician. And most importantly, you are both wrong. And I don’t just mean in your views of women.

Astronomer: What do you mean?

Lisa: Magician, you believe that the stars govern human destiny. You are convinced your interpretation is true. And you, “the great fantastic astronomer,” believe science will eventually explain everything. You even dream of a future with no religion and no governments because science will guide humanity. 

Astronomer: I believe reason will overcome superstition.

Lisa: But reason hasn’t solved every problem. We discovered atoms, galaxies, black holes, DNA, and still we have wars, inequality, fanaticism, and loneliness.

Astronomer: Science was never responsible for human morality.

Lisa: Exactly. That's why it cannot replace everything else.

Magician: Wise words. Especially for a woman.

Lisa: Ok that’s enough! At the next misogynist comment, I will shut the program down. Let’s go back to my work: I kept trying to choose between wonder and accuracy, as if they couldn't exist together. But now I understand they can. I don't have to tell people that Venus is magical, and I don't have to bury them under technical terms either. I just have to make them curious enough to want to know more.

Astronomer: Curiosity is not a bad place to begin. Indeed, when I was a child, I was fascinated by the stars, and I spent many nights wondering about life on other planets.  It was curiosity and wonder that made me passionate about astronomy. Miss Lisa, I must admit you made a good point. I underestimated you.

Magician: Even if not everything you are saying is comprehensible to me, I must say that although you are a woman, you are wise. I can’t say the same for this man here.

Astronomer: Oh, you - 

Lisa: Wait! The alarm!

Magician: What is that noise?

Lisa: Oh no, my supervisor is coming! Sorry, guys, but I really have to shoot the program down. 

Astronomer: What? Does it mean we will disappear forever?

Lisa: Unfortunately, yes. It was a pleasure to meet you. Not really, actually, you are pretty sexist, but somehow also funny. 

Magician: But, I don’t want to go.

Astronomer: Wait!

Lisa: Goodbye!

The holograms disappear. Lisa looks at the slide of her presentation before her supervisor enters the room.
​
Lisa: Now I know what changes I have to make. Delete this…add another picture. I could start with a question for the public: “What can a tiny black dot crossing the Sun tell us about worlds we have never seen?” Now, that’s a conference I’d like to attend. 

Sofia Di Vito

Sofia Di Vito is a Philosophy graduate with a strong interest in science communication, journalism, and digital storytelling. Her academic background in philosophy and history of science has led her to explore the relationship between science, society, and visual communication, particularly in astronomy.

​Primavera di Stabiae

Her face is turned as she walks away
she cannot feel my gaze
fingers poised to pluck the blooms
and add them to her pale bouquet 

I see her cheek in quarter view
her golden gown down shoulder falls
while the sun turns hair to brass
bare feet tread tender grass

she's walked 2000 years            
on ancient painted wall 
never once to see us pause
generations fleeting past

dwelling in immortal green
like a myth in days of old
but there's a price for aquamarine 
to turn her back on human kind

though my heart inclines toward love
she will not meet my eye
Turned to face an endless spring
she has made her fateful choice

she's walked 2000 years            
on ancient painted wall 
never once to see us pause
generations fleeting past

Stephen Cline

A musical version is available on all streaming sites:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/primavera/1437071788?i=1437071791https://youtu.be/K4npVvb3ryA?si=-YsSNp9cqANVJsnj

Stephen Cline earned his master’s in literature from CSUDH, is a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, and received an NEH Fellowship to study Arthurian Literature of the Middle Ages. A retired English professor, he lives in Hawaii with his poet wife, Nancee. He has had numerous short stories, essays, and cartoons published in the US and Britain in magazines and anthologies. His three novels: The Last Book, Echoes Over Water and The Last Orange Grove are available from Amazon.com. Stephen is also a performing and recording musician whose work is available on all streaming platforms.

The Online Creative Residency run by Europeana - Europe’s digital platform for cultural heritage - brings students and emerging professionals who want to gain storytelling skills together with expert mentors in a range of formats, including creative writing. The theme uniting their work for 2026 was science. 
 
From inventions and inventors, through to discoveries both big and small, and things that make our lives better - or worse - science is the language that explains our world.
 
This year, the residency looked at how science shapes us, and used cultural heritage to question, interrogate, or muse upon how science sees and configures everything around us - our bodies, food, nature, time, and society. What can we learn from the past? What will we see in our future? What can looking at science in a creative way teach us about the nature of humankind?
 
Jana Gelder, Sofia Di Vito and Chiara Gottardo responded to science-themed artworks on Europeana to create new stories, and we’re delighted and grateful for their writing to be published on The Ekphrastic Review.

Beth Daley, Europeana Foundation, Audience Engagement, Editorial Adviser

**
​
​Jana says that for her story, "Source Code," "I was inspired by the interesting patterns on Jacquard loom punch cards and the history behind it - the fact that modern computing is so closely tied to fibre art and therefore also women’s labour. As someone who is an avid crocheter and hobbyist seamstress herself, while also being interested in the creative possibilities of coding, I often see this overlap of technical knowledge, but it’s very hard to explain to someone, if they have never tried reading (or God forbid drafting) a sewing pattern. The story of historical looms being the predecessors of computers therefore illustrates some of this."

​Source Code 

Back and forth they move, pale spiders upon the loom. The rhythm of her hands is steady; a steadiness practiced for thousands of hours. Her mother’s hands had moved so. Her grandmother’s hands had moved so. Since their fingers could articulate. Weaving things into existence. Blankets, shrouds, wedding cloths, swaddling bands; the private architecture of human life. A certain pattern might confuse the wandering eye of misfortune. 

The Weaver’s sister is expecting and the Weaver is excited to make a blanket for the Unborn. Her sister, growing the first child of this generation. She, Anna, is the elder of the two, so she should have been first. But the excitement and glowing joy in her sister's face is enough to overshadow any resentment the Weaver might have hidden away in her heart. And anyway, a child of her own would mean a shift. Less time to create, less time to work the loom - maybe she’d need an assistant, one of the girls from the village. Her husband wouldn’t like a stranger in the shop. Maybe she wouldn’t either, she takes pride in her creations. She should get to it. But before you can devote yourself to the rhythm of the loom, you have to craft the pattern. The draft lies before her on the table, ruled into four sections: threading, tie-up, treadling and drawdown. Along the top, she plots the warp - the long, tense threads that will form the bones of the cloth. She begins at the lower edge of the draft.

One, two, three, four.

The marks rise diagonally through the shafts. Then they descend. 

Three, two, one. 

A pointed progression: the beginning of a bird’s eye, small and watchful. She repeats it across the page, counting under her breath. Every mark will eventually become a physical thread stretched from the back beam to the cloth. She has done this many times and she knows she is good at it, although nobody has ever told her so directly. Sometimes though, customers come to her husband's shop and talk about the pieces. “How artful”- said, by one of the travelling Englishmen about her largest work, a wall hanging depicting local flora and fauna, telling the stories of magic in the woods. She would have liked, then and there, to tell him it was she who made it, to let him in on the secrets and stories of her weaving. 

Next comes the tie-up - the small square in the corner where the shafts are bound to the treadles beneath the loom. 

One, two, three, four.

Three, two, one. 

There is a lot you can learn from people’s comments and Anna liked to tend the shop and listened where she could. People called weaving a craft when they wished to praise patience, and an art when they wished to praise beauty. They called it women’s work when they did not wish to praise it at all.
       
​Threading tells her where every warp thread belongs. The tie-up tells the loom which shafts obey each treadle. The treadling tells her feet when to move. Only in the largest part of the draft - the drawdown - do all three instructions meet. There she colours the squares one row at a time. A less experienced weaver might be able to follow a pattern but creating it takes not only the technical understanding, but a knowledge of colour and balance, of harmony. This is where she has always been better than her sister, who had the vision but never the patience, who used to look up to her. Now of course, a different hierarchy has emerged and it is one in which she falls behind. 

For the first pick, shafts one and two rise. Every warp thread assigned to those shafts appears on the surface of the cloth, so she marks each corresponding square. Row after row, the scattered instructions resolve into an image. A dark diamond emerges. Then another one within it. Small white eyes appear between black points. The motif repeats, mirrors itself, closes. The Weaver sharpens her pencil and checks the repeat again. Twenty-eight warp ends across. Fourteen picks before the design mirrors.

“Anna, child, be mindful.” 

Her grandmother had once told her, while knitting beside the stove, “You always work some part of yourself into what you make.” The old woman’s needles had clicked in the firelight like the teeth of a small animal. They moved with sharpness and Anna remembers hoping to inherit this unyielding spryness. “And that is why, you must leave one mistake. A little door through which the soul may crawl back out.” 

Through, loop, through, loop… and the soul is trapped. Klick, klack of needles. It works the same with weaving, she knows now: Up, down, up, down. She thinks of her sister's swelling belly and then starts again to move her fingers, pushing the shuttle back and forth. 

When the blanket is finished, she carries it to her sister’s house. She has done it well and, selfishly, before handing it over, she hopes it will be remembered as her work. She knows the tapestries in the shop will not carry her name into the future, but this blanket might be given from daughter to daughter to daughter and they might share its story with it, as women often do. The little girl has arrived early and seems impossibly small, her eyelids blue-veined and translucent, her hands opening and closing around nothing. Her sister lays the baby in the centre of the cloth. For a moment, the eyes of the pattern surround the child on every side. Anna gives her a soft kiss on her small head. Nothing more to hope and wish than this: God, let her soul go where it pleases, don’t let her get too entangled in the perfect fabric of her own life. Something else there, lingering as well. This feeling, burning in her lately. She can’t quite express it; if she starts pulling at this thread she is afraid of what it might unravel. May you remember. The Weaver straightens up, places a kiss, too, on the forehead of her tired sister and leaves for her loom. 

*
​
Years and years later, the Programmer sits at her desk. The room is dark except for the light of the screen. Her hands move steadily over the keyboard, a practiced motion that has become unconscious. It’s a personal project, which is why she submits to the cliché of working after reasonable people have long gone to bed. But Anna doesn’t really mind, she is focused and having fun.
            
One, two, three, four. Then back to the beginning.
            
The same sequence performed upon different values, row after row. Every line will be translated into smaller instructions, and those instructions into smaller ones still, until all that remains are electrical states: on and off, high and low, one and zero. She doesn’t know that before this machine she is working on now, there had been another one. That the motions she performs are reminiscent of something else. The Programmer divides the remaining work into threads. Each thread follows its own sequence of instructions, moving alongside the others through the machine.               

She runs the program. An error appears. A small yawn escapes her and she pulls the blanket on her knees closer to herself. Its colours have faded, the dark diamonds of its pattern barely visible. One corner has worn almost transparent from generations of sleeping fingers worrying at it in the dark. She will make this work today, she knows she can. The project began with a research paper and several hundred lines of code she found in a neglected repository. The researchers had trained a program to recognize weaving structures from photographs. Anna had begun by rebuilding the method, partly to understand it and partly because their code no longer ran on any version of the software she had installed. After that, the project widened in the way personal projects do, absorbing evenings and weekends. Channeling her curiosity and focus in a way that neither her friends nor professors understood, since after all, there were actual exams to study for. 
           
Now, many excuses for skipped board game evenings later, the program manages to correct the angle of a photograph, estimates the direction of the warp and can trace the centre of each visible thread. Anna does miss socialising, at times. But it’s more that she likes the idea of a nice evening with friends, not the actual thing. Not the anxiety that comes with it, the being out of place. Devoting herself to a personal project gives her the excuse of productivity. More importantly though: the program now allows her to reconstruct a loom pattern from pictures of existing cloth, making ancient weaving patterns reproducible. She wants to make the final result open source, available to anyone to keep building on it. A living, breathing thing.
            
She is now testing it with a picture of the blanket on her lap. She doesn’t know much about it, only that it’s an heirloom, generations old. It has always quieted her nerves and she remembers, as a child, tracing the diamond pattern in endless loops to fall asleep. But it is giving her a headache in the reconstruction. The pattern the computer predicts does not match the actual pattern on the blanket and she doesn’t understand where the mistake lies. She has dug through the code countless times, trying to find the error. She runs the image recognition again, a few regions refuse. The worn corner is expected, its confidence map is almost entirely grey. Another patch, nearer the centre, is different. The computer is confident about what it sees there, but it makes no sense. According to the program, three full rows have been woven incorrectly. 
            
Anna pulls the blanket closer and finds the place with her fingers. At first she sees only the faded pattern. Then she notices that several threads are slightly thicker, their colour almost but not quite the same as the yarn around them. A repair. Someone had filled a damaged section by following what remained around the hole. One crossing changed the next, and the next. By the time the new threads met the older cloth, the eye had shifted sideways and the pattern had become a slightly different one. On her screen, Anna marks the section as repaired and the pattern becomes cleaner, but another disagreement remains farther down. This repair is newer. The yarn is smoother, less faded. And it does not follow the older cloth around it, instead it follows the first repair.    
            
A repair of a repair.
            
She searches the rest of the blanket and finds a third version near the border. There, the eye has returned to the centre, but the diamond closes one row too late. Until now, the program has treated the differences as damage obscuring a single original design. But when Anna divides the blanket into sections, each produces its own pattern. Even the oldest surviving part contains two different borders, there is no clean place where the original ends and the repairs begin. Absent-mindedly she strokes the blanket, caresses the intersections, where to repair something perfectly would have meant to repair it invisibly. As if she was a tired three-year-old again, her eyes unconsciously follow the winding threads around the blanket. The pattern still draws her in, but this time, instead of soothing her, a heavier feeling settles in her chest. How come she never noticed these small deviations? Anna’s aunt once told her that handmade things should contain a mistake. Otherwise, some part of the maker might become trapped inside them. Anna thought it was ridiculous and illogical but now, tracing the lines and workings of dozens of fingers, she understands something essential about it. 
            
Another yawn, turning Anna’s eyes watery. Hesitantly, she lowers the blanket. Maybe that's enough progress for today. The code seems to be working better than expected. She understands that a few adjustments to the approach are needed, to the instructions of how the program should be used. But for now it’s fine, maybe even good.
            
​The little arrow of her mouse hovers over the x of the window. Alone in the dark, she thinks of the threads running through her machine; loops repeating without end, processes caught waiting for one another, of structures so complete that nothing living could escape them. Before shutting down the program for the night, she leans back slightly into her chair and opens the source code, adding four little letters: A-N-N-A. 
 
Jana Geldner

Jana Geldner is a writer and editor with an interest in the weird and the things we do with our hands.

A Study of Six Persimmons
 
after 牧谿
 
Variation of tonality
in six fruit that
embody silence 
 
Its only speech in 
blue-black ink 
whispers
 
across 
boundless
intervals far
 
from the  
yáng of
Mùxī’s earlier
 
brushstrokes: crane,
goddess, gibbon
Its tensions are
 
among those
of the same
ilk, taut, still

Gareth Lee

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Southeast Asia, Gareth Lee lives in New York. He holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University. Lee's poetry has appeared in The Canary, Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, Denver Quarterly, First Intensity, GutCult, Kenyon Review Online, Northwest Review, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. His work is forthcoming in The Pasticheur.