In a past life, when I was a history teacher, I taught geography to young adolescents. I wasn’t trained in it, and I only got by because of a fairly good textbook and exceptionally good colleagues. One thing I found fascinating was the way geographers conceptualise ‘space’ and ‘place’ - words that I, a humble historian, might just bandy around, had greater resonance for those mysterious geographers. And so we have Ben Lockwood’s essay on Ive Grimes’ short story collection. The way she uses space and place, and how Lockwood explores what those mean in Grimes’ fiction, has given me a whole new appreciation for how where something occurs can have enormous significance.