Desired Essays
110 x 220 mm, 96 pages (bifold concertina)
Athens, Greece
Editor-in-chief and creative director: Anastasia Pappa
From the team behind Desired Landscapes—the pocket-sized magazine devoted to personal experiences of cities—comes Desired Essays, an anthology of stories that emerged from the Desired Essays online writing workshop attended by readers in 2025. The workshops operated as a ‘writing journey’ through which attendees could keep one another accountable on their pledge to practice writing more frequently, which manifested as a shared document in which participants could publish, read, and critique each other.
Presented as a bifold concertina—and bearing resemblance to a leatherbound notebook—this one-off special edition is loosely structured around writing prompts, opening with snippets written in response to prompts such as ‘A street to walk’ or ‘Waking up in a strange city’. Following these introductory prompts comes a series of extended essays on cities including New York, Sofia, Rome, Dhaka, Athens, Istanbul, Bogota, Mumbai, Korissos and Paris, informed by each author’s unique personal experiences.
On the Journal
At work with Natassa Pappa: ‘When I went abroad walking became my main research method, as it creates a linear order to a rather chaotic urban experience. I started by designing an app to explore your own city by drawing a random shape on top of its grid, and then I focused more on mapping.’
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