The British Council's New Writing anthology has now reached the grand old age of ...12! Where other annual anthologies have fallen by the wayside we are delighted to be able to boast that our collection is going from strength to strength. This is partly because of the diversity of our changing teams of editors who always have a fresh, invigorating and unique perspective to bring to the party, and partly because we are in the very lucky position of having a fantastic body of work from which those editors can make their selection.

In this issue of Literature Matters, our astute yet very different New Writing 12 editors, Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers, openly discuss the difficulties of the editorial process and pick out one or two of their favourites from the collection. Meanwhile one of the editors of New Writing 13 (due out in March 2005) shares his views on selecting a range of work that he feels will make for a great anthology.

If you would like a sneak preview of some of the poetry featured in the anthology, we can offer you that too (see left-hand links).

Sasha Dugdale – 'Faking It'

Vicki Feaver – 'Gorilla'

Patience Agbabi – 'Seeing Red'

Alan Jenkins – 'Wildlife'