Literature is like shadow-boxing.

It coaches us in the art of feeling. By arousing our passions in response to imagined scenarios, literature strengthens our emotional muscles and increases the dexterity of our sympathies. In reading, we laugh or cry at fictional characters living fictional lives, so that we may learn how better to laugh or cry at our own.

Literature that leads us to feel something we don’t understand – empathy for a character who is different from us, admiration for an action we’d in real life condemn – is at best uncomfortable and at worst profoundly threatening. But at VOLTA, we believe that it’s precisely this quality of good literature that makes it matter: art pushes us towards encounters we shrink from. Like the shadow-boxer, fighting air, we train our feelings through fictional experience. We become emotionally stronger and more agile, so that in our real lives, we can feel more powerfully and honestly.

We’re looking for pieces that constantly confront readers with images that startle them into looking at the world in new ways. Our ambition is to reinvigorate the written word for our generation and encourage writers of all ages to keep engaging with and challenging literary convention.