Writers have always regarded walls as a challenge to be overcome. Put a barrier in their way and they will tunnel under it, vault over it or simply blast their way straight through it. In Beyond the Walls, creative writing students from York St John University continue this laudable tradition with a collection of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction that adroitly demolishes preconceived ideas about their so-called 'snowflake' generation. Tackling global issues like war, the environment and animal cruelty as well as more intimate, human-scale subjects like grief, depression and transformation with crystalline clarity, their collective vision is unflinching, informed, aware and, ultimately, compassionate.