The National Institute of Standards and Technology

About the author

Andrew Galan

Andrew Galan is the author of two collections of poetry, That Place of Infested Roads and For All the Veronicas, and his work has...

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Non-fictionThe quake lasted six minutes – the office floor jolted convulsively; metal shelves rattled, files fell with a cacophony of thuds, and the structure of the building seemed to be squeaking. And then it stopped. My office building hadn’t collapsed. Neither had our apartment; my husband and son weren’t hurt. But it wasn’t the end. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had lost power, which was required to cool both the reactors and spent fuel rods. The government was braced for the worst: massive explosions or core meltdowns. A nuclear emergency was declared at 7.03 pm.

The great divide

In ConversationIn the ’80s, and maybe the early ’90s, fashion was a political statement just like art was…and real art wasn’t about selling out or succeeding in a mainstream context; it was the opposite. The whole idea was that you didn’t want to conform. Anyone who was trying to make money off your art or helping you make money was corrupt or compromised. The last thing you did as an artist or a writer in the ’80s was self-publicise – it was so naff, it wasn’t done. Street cred was what mattered. And I’ve been watching, with social media and the internet, this 180-degree shift over the last few decades.

the road of ghosts

FictionGraeme works with me almost every day of each school holidays. He conducts sessions that stretch from an hour into two. He teaches me how to shoot; he splinters my form down into nothing and then restructures it until it is exact. Fingertips: the ball slides through the air into the ring. He shuffles after each rebound, his returning pass precise. Graeme pours himself into me. He is patient. He is generous. He is firm, like a grandfather.