Tbilisi
Writing

Tbilisi is older than most things you can name. It knows this and it is relaxed about it.

The edge of Europe · Ancient wine culture · Soviet bones under baroque skin

Tbilisi sits at the eastern edge of what Europe decides to call itself — depending on who you ask, it is either in Europe or not, which is the kind of question Tbilisi has stopped caring about. The city has been making wine for eight thousand years. The medieval architecture and Soviet concrete and ornate balconies all coexist in the same neighbourhood. Tbilisi is the least self-conscious city in the region, which makes it one of the most interesting.

"At the guesthouse in Tbilisi they gave me wine before they gave me a key. The wine was from their own vineyard, from grapes their grandparents had planted. The key, when it came, opened everything."

Tumbleweed Words — Tbilisi

The Tbilisi writing in Tumbleweed Words is concerned with hospitality — the Georgian tradition of supra, the table, the tamada toastmaster, the insistence on feeding strangers — and what happens to a writer's sensibility when a culture makes generosity structural rather than occasional. It changes what the writing notices. It changes what seems worth saying.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.