Three Months in the Zebra Room

By Joshua Jones

Published by Hello America Stereo Cassette

Book-on-tape

Joshua Jones is a queer and neurodivergent writer from Llanelli, South Wales. His debut work of fiction, Local Fires (Parthian, 2023), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and he has been widely published and anthologised. He co-founded Dyddiau Du (Welsh for Dark Days), a library and artspace for/by LGBTQIA+ & neurodivergent folk, and is one part of a music duo, Howl & Jones. He lives in Cardiff, Wales.

"Three Months in the Zebra Room is a diaristic poetry sequence written while living in a shitty house, with a shitty live-in landlord who was addicted to painkillers, and an alcoholic French jazz guitarist. My partner and I rented a tiny room in the house that had zebra print wallpaper, we both didn't have jobs and were new to the city. It was just after lockdown, during a summer heatwave, my dad had been diagnosed with cancer, and the landlord's cats kept bringing in dead birds. Death was everywhere and constant, but so were pockets of love and hope." -Joshua Jones