Housing is a human right.

Stories on the Move Literary Magazine is a personal and vulnerable magazine dedicated to people who are unhoused or experiencing housing insecurities. It grows awareness and empathy — the stories brim with glimmers of hope, unveiling the realities of housing adversities while also reinforcing a deep resilience for a better life.

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The authors & artists in Stories on the Move document personal experiences and depict reflections on homelessness through lyrical narratives and affirming poetry. Featuring sixteen writers and four artists, this magazine provides a heartwarming and empathetic insight into the lives of the unhoused.

Campbell Macknight says,

“Yet given more than one billion people are without adequate housing, it is timely to be reminded of our universal need for a place to live in peace, security and dignity. In its worst form, a lack of adequate housing can amount to being “homeless” — not always for want of physical shelter, but rather on account of social alienation. There is a kind of existential disorientation which accompanies displacement and a lost sense of belonging, whether attributable to conflict, persecution, economic exclusion, disasters or climate change.

“To be “unhoused,” on the other hand, presents a dual significance encompassing both a process and a situation of deprivation: losing, as compared to not having, a roof over one’s head. These are all fundamentally different experiences. None define a person, however, beyond describing their circumstances. Not everyone who is unhoused will end up in a camp or sleeping under the stars, and not everyone without a home is a refugee.”

“IHRAM Press assembles vastly divergent ways of conceptualising home, shelter, nostalgia and belonging which are alternately fixed and fluid: from roots holding one to a place of origin, to family and other forms of attachment carried by memory and relationships.”

— Campbell

About the contributors, Campbell writes,

The Writers

Annastatia Brooks

She recalls a frigid ‘emptiness’ within the walls of a house offering protection from the elements but lacking the warmth and intimacy of a home.

Matthew Schembri

He sees no such emptiness in the sky above us, giving a transcendent view of our common humanity and evolutionary history.

Constantinos Makris

He points out just how violent and dangerous the place one calls home can become.

Folarin and Ogbu Ferdinand Ugochukwu

Ruminating on the experiences of those displaced by conflict — who may never again have a home in their place of origin, and who might be forced to make and remake new homes, time and time again — they find hope in reinvention and renewal.

Raven Schmale

She shares a similar association of family with happier recollections of warmth, love and joy, highlighting the aggravated risk of exploitation for unhoused children, especially those experiencing homelessness and hunger.

Gloria Ogo

When she observes how cycles of decomposition inevitably overtake and outlive urban sites of abandonment, nature’s resilience may offer consolation to people inhabiting spaces forgotten by the city. As far as our sense of home and the fate of our fragile blue planet can be understood in parallel, we may wonder nonetheless if humanity will ever realise what we stand to lose until it has been utterly destroyed.

The Artists

Ally Zlatar

She illustrates, home itself may seem at least partially foreign to us and disconcerting, particularly for families torn by migration and the accompanying paradigm of transformation through so-called ‘integration’.

Ernest Langston

He portrays a calm sanctuary of stillness, where one’s right to privacy may be enjoyed — the need for respite from noise and public exposure is too often overlooked when humanitarians concentrate on material support to the unhoused.

Luis Pedro Picasso

A piercing portrait of society’s moral hypocrisy and contradictions is painted.

“Stories provide the building blocks of myth and creation, enriched by a familiar language and other sounds, scents and tastes, allowing refugee communities the means to reconstruct and maintain a culture of social belonging.”

— Campbell

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Interested in reading more?

Check out these snippets from inside or get your own copy today.

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