Margin A quarterly journal of overlooked places Issue 14 Autumn 2026

Margin

Issue fourteen Low Water Autumn 2026

Reading mode

No. 01 Cover story Field essay

The River Keeps Its Receipts

by Imani Vale

Along a drought-exposed riverbed, shop ledgers, bottle caps, and vanished street plans surface together. A field essay about civic memory and what infrastructure tries to forget.

Issue 14 takes its title from the bed itself: a season of low water is a season of things showing.

Everything else in the issue
Shorelines of a shrinking reservoir Nine irregular shorelines nested inside one another, each older line fainter than the last, closing on a small remaining pool at the lower right. In the exposed bed are scattered marks for bottle caps and ledgers, and a faint dashed street grid where a plan was abandoned. Four of the shorelines carry years: 1978, 1996, 2011 and 2026. 1978 1996 2011 2026
Fig. 1 High-water lines, redrawn from the cover story's riverbed. The older the line, the fainter it has become.

No. 02 – 04

In this issue

Three further stories, each from a place the map is quiet about.

  1. 02

    Cartography

    Night Bus Atlas

    by Tomás Iriarte

    The unofficial geography drawn by cleaners, nurses, bakers, and drivers while a city's daytime map is asleep.

  2. 03

    Reportage

    Concrete Orchards

    by Meera Das

    Residents tend fruit trees in the unfinished floors of a financial district, negotiating shade, ownership, and the patience of roots.

  3. 04

    Photographs & notes

    A Language for Empty Pools

    by Hana Mori

    Photographs and short notes from public baths retired after the last swimmer, where tile patterns keep directing bodies that no longer arrive.

Back issues

Still on the shelf

Three previous issues, each a season of overlooked places.

  • 13 After the Last Train Summer 2026
  • 12 Borrowed Ground Spring 2026
  • 11 The Weather Indoors Winter 2025