Welcome to The Ironist
ISSN 2817-7363
The Ironist is dedicated to exploring irony wherever it occurs. We have a range of essays and stories which cover historical, artistic, and contemporary life and events. We welcome your comments, support and submissions.
The Little Tanagra: Part 1
We are delighted to introduce a new serialized work of literary fiction from Dr. Hara Papatheodorou: a fairy tale that reimagines the origins of the celebrated Tanagra figurines in ancient Greece. In the small village of Tanagra, in Boeotia, there lived a poor...
Words, Words, Words
Starting in April 2026, The Ironist is starting a running monthly series of articles on the English language written by our very own contributor Peter Scotchmer, a retired English teacher. Polonius: ‘What is the matter you read, my lord?’ Hamlet: ‘Words, words,...
Skinny Legs and All: The Seriousness of the Absurd
Talking objects, messy love, art, philosophy, and global conflict. All in one book. “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.” Over time I have come to believe that the higher the element of fantasy in a book, the more serious it often...
Utopian Delusions
Peter Scotchmer writes about the enduring lure of utopia and why humanity’s attempts to build perfect societies so often end in dystopia. I will not walk with your progressive apes, Erect and sapient. Before them gapes The dark abyss to which their progress...
Forgotten Heroes #8 – Pauolos Paella the Peacemaker
In this Forgotten Heroes story, Alfred Russel Wallace, flying whales called linanders, and a peace-making dish collide in an improbable history of the world’s most famous rice pan. Recently discovered petroglyph of a linander assisting ancient boy scouts...
Prose Open Mic II (presented by The Irony Club and Mayil Coffee | 25 March 5 pm)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a finished piece must be in want of a community. How many of us have agonized over our drafts restlessly and endlessly, wondering who to read it to and what to do with it? We, at the Irony Club,...
Miscellaneous Ramblings #9 – Part 1, Recognizing Evil
“The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago I was in Budapest when I heard about the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. One of the worst things about this horror is how quickly it...
RETVRN to Casablanca
The inconvenient Liberalism of a "traditional" classic “I’ve often wondered why you don’t return to America.” When the French police chief says this to Rick, we learn he’s an exile. We never learn why, but we get hints of communist leanings. “You ran guns to Ethiopia....
The Reading Chair: Falling in Love with The Sirens of Titan
…and the Joke That Explains Everything “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” Famous words by Malachi Constant, the man who gets rich by chance and ends up in space by chance, feels extraordinarily deeply...
