Dedicated publisher of fiction, poetry and memoir
Today, I am very proud to be hosting my first guest post: a short story by Nick Reeves. Nick lives on the North East coast of England and many of his stories are set in the fictional town of Penn Beacon. He counts magpies (of which there were 8 at the last tally), and collects... Continue Reading →
I was packing up my life. It was time to move on. I'd found employment, yes; but not the kind I had been looking for. I sat behind a desk for 8 hours every day, deleting or ignoring emails, until someone shouted at me loud enough to elicit a response. It wasn't what I'd been... Continue Reading →
I found this scrawled into my copy of Joyce's Dubliners (one of the books I'd liberated from storage last weekend). I was immediately intrigued, because I couldn't remember writing it. It's not so much a story as a vignette, and I'm afraid it's not quite up there with Joyce in terms of literary merit. Still... Continue Reading →
Today, I'm revisiting an old post, in the light of our current situation. With a third of the world's human population on lockdown, we've seen a definite reduction in global carbon emissions. We've also seen the natural world thriving as humans take shelter and reduce their day-to-day polluting activities. I wonder if all of this... Continue Reading →
Forget Paris, forget Venice, forget Rome... For me, the most romantic city in the world is Liverpool. Dreams of long-departed emigrants hang in the dockside air; ever expectant; awaiting transportation to the New World. I can almost hear their chatter on the docks. Maybe it's from the many visits to the Maritime Museum as a... Continue Reading →
Do you remember that night, the night we talked? It was a fine and starlit night. Somewhere backstage, a salamander sounded the depths of the night, his mating call a sonar probe, rebounding and marking out the limits of our world. We didn't need a territory greater than this, delineated by his echoing mating call:... Continue Reading →
After so long waiting, I had finally arrived. I had coveted the dustbin for years: stainless steel; easy-clean; antibacterial. Best of all was the footpedal which meant you would never have to touch it, except to take the bag out. This would be contained within an odour-eliminating, sleekly streamlined plastic capsule. The insanitary sanitised once... Continue Reading →
She stood at the front of the class, waiting to be introduced, though 'thrown to the lions' would have been more accurate. She had shoulder-length hair which was thick and cut without care, dry at the ends and mousy brown. Her frame was thick also, and her gait awkward. In short, she didn't stand a... Continue Reading →
Why fade these children of the spring? born but to smile & fall. Ah! Thel is like a watry bow. and like a parting cloud. ... Continue Reading →
She is coiled, tense like steel, before it was ever forged in the minds of men. She bites her tail, symbolising eternity. For an eternity she has been here waiting, and is waiting, still. She has been here far longer than mankind, and this alone would be reason enough to blame her. Her skin is... Continue Reading →
Experiments in Fiction 