Things are always accidentally slipping away. Especially when you are rather absent-minded, or also caring for a small child who is very slowly learning what “flinging” and “throwing” and well “losing” something might mean.

My bike is a silver Suzuki (Metallic Mystic Silver, to be specific). I named her Roberta, and I love her.

I am a self-diagnosed sleep addict. I collect REM hours like they are going into a savings account. - Patrice Heins

Ian McAlpin tells stories with pictures. He's versed in multiple forms of filmmaking — short, feature, analog, digital, documentary, animation, commercial, experimental, & narrative. His work as a cinematographer includes the documentaries Born to Fly, The Russian Winter, "The Obama Conversation" for Vox, & the upcoming shorts "Damnation" starring Melissa Leo, and "Capsule" — a stop-motion space story. He's directed for a diverse client list including Nest Labs, Banana Republic, and NPR.

It’s easy to get worked up about Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). In the wake of the massive physical tragedies that befell her she was an amazing painter. She was a great Surrealist, and her work (especially self-portraits) continues to inspire contemporary artists - not to mention the selfie movement. So it's no surprise Ishiuchi Miyako’s Frida (on view in London at Michael Hoppen Gallery until 12 July) has been an internet sensation.

Ralph Martin is a writer, sometime journalist and a practically professional party host-cum-man-about-town (Berlin, that is). The story of Lydia and Ralph's providential meeting begins, as all these things do, at Bar Drei on a rainy Thanksgiving eve...

Maker and musician Megan Adie shows & tells us how she travels light in and out of Copenhagen...

This week's Traveling Light features beloved items belonging to Mena Mark Hanna...

Samuel Solomon grew up in New York City and spent his twenties in Los Angeles before moving to the U.K., where he is Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. He completed a PhD on socialist-feminism and innovative U.K. poetry at the University of Southern California and is co-translator of The Acrobat: The Selected Poems of Celia Dropkin (Tebot Bach 2014). His essays, poems, and translations have been appeared in a range of US and UK journals, including differences, Décalages, Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, htmlgiant, Hi Zero, and Lana Turner, and his chapbook, Life of Riley (2012), is available from Bad Press. He is Co-director of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence.

Sheela is a minimalist who loves high ceilings and open spaces, and the freedom to travel without too much fuss.  She is a wanderer at heart, and has spent much of the last decade roving between New York, Italy, and India.  She has settled in London for the moment, thanks to the domesticating efforts of her English boyfriend. 

Kate McQuaid is a lover of lakes, oceans, sky, bright sun and strong atmospheres. Her wish is for everyone to be tender, compassionate and patient, though she is totally comfortable with not being in control of any of that. She's our first official contributor, our first minimalist, and we love her purist packing ethic. We think you will too...

I’m absolutely a maximalist, though this often means I have practically nothing practical with me. Take, for example, the things I packed when I moved to London after graduate school...

I’m a maximalist at heart, in that I can never quite have enough of anything. This is true for most things in my life, but particularly true for me in the packing department. Five sweaters and thirty pairs of underwear is probably a safe number for wherever you’re going, and definitely sufficient for a weeklong trip to a mild climate, but for me it’s never quite safe enough.