In my short text ‘Emma bolland | Hestia Peppe’, published in Salon for a Speculative Future, (eds Monika Oeschler with Sharon Kivland, MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, 2020), I coined the term ‘amica-critical’ to describe the kinds of friendships essential for the creation and sustainability of supportive, reciprocally generous, creative-critical communities. I believe these kinds of friendships to be essential for writers and artists, to be the cornerstone of both collaborative and individual practice. When invited to speak about my practice, to give one of the Transmission public lectures at Sheffield Hallam University (under the conditions of pandemic), I chose to focus on the ‘amica-critical’, in all its forms, in relation to what I do; to speak about what we all miss—the presence of others. You can watch the lecture here: