Editing a ‘women’s edition’ of a literary journal is bound to be fraught with semantic problems. What is women’s writing? By women? About women? As Island ’s fiction editor, Rachel Edwards, editorialises, ‘there is nothing that defines women’s fiction apart from the sex of the author. Nothing!’ The politics of contriving a women’s edition of a literary journal, then, is simple: women’s voices are under-represented in the domain, a disparity which can be addressed by providing platforms for them.