HEAT 20 continues the charter of diverse subject matter and author biogs, with essays, prose and poetry from China, the USA and Ireland, as well as touching base with Italy, Peru and Africa to name but a few thematic detours.

With so much to peruse, it is not easy to review HEAT 20, for each time you go back to it to double check, you unearth something you have missed previously – which is most likely the hallmark of a quality literary production.

Adam Aitkin's remarkably observant and laugh-out-loud expose/essay on his childhood in Holland, Malaysia and Thailand in the custody of a culturally cross-dressing and brand-hungry father stirs more than its title, An Essay On Fashion, in the conscious reader. Ireland's Kerrie Hardie wafts a Galway breeze straight from the pages with her ode to Catalan poet Joan Margarit, entitled Great Northern Divers In Ballinskelligs Bay.

On the other fall of the bookish coin, Kerry Leves astounds with his beautiful take on Picasso's Guitar with the sensual and provocative One Of My Artists.

The translated extracts from Ah Jian's diaries/novel entitled 1989: My Confession, while strumming the emotive strings of readers, perhaps covers ground that has already been well saturated; nonetheless, it is still an eye-opening read.

There is obviously a lot of devotion going into producing HEAT, and although it might appear a top-end-of-town (in a literary sense) journal, the adage that one should never judge a volume by its cover certainly applies here.