"You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird." - Tori Amos If you kill the birdyou’ll rise up every morning drone-like, yawning heart un-singing If you kill the birdyou’ll spend your whole life mourningyearning, wishing:unfulfilling If you kill the birdyou’re dead girl, walkingempty streets through hardrain falling: You’re just an empty cage girlvoid of... Continue Reading →
White Heaven #poetry
Underneath the skies of this white heavenmarionettes dancedip and bowcrawlmount a lampostscare the children Seagulls on sticks stalkjellyfish catcherscatch them unawaresthe children’s facesglittering, are painted At the bar, a hen-night princessappears as a mirageor haze of nylon taffetaand disappears into a fruited ciderwhere would-be princesses admire hercaptures her knight-errant, entombs him in a castle tower... Continue Reading →
New Year? Newsletter!
Happy New Year to all of my Dear Readers! I hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season, and managed to recharge your batteries. I enjoyed taking some time out and having fun with my family: the greatest gift of all! As I mentioned earlier, I have lots of exciting plans for EIF in 2022. If... Continue Reading →
EIF Goes into Business!
Exciting news! Experiments in Fiction is now no longer just your favourite poetry and fiction website 🙂 it is also my own small business. This means I have taken a further step towards my dream of making a living from my writing. Of course, the main reason we write is because we love it, but... Continue Reading →
Three new poetry collections!
Good morning and a happy weekend to all of my dear readers, I just wanted to let you know that I am currently working on not one, not two, but three new poetry collections! One will be a chapbook of lyrical love poetry so unashamedly romantic that I'm not sure any publisher will touch it,... Continue Reading →
Lessons learned in novel writing via blogging
It's three years, almost to the day, since I started work on my first novel, The Folks across the River. My eldest son had returned to school, and my youngest had just started nursery. For the first time in at least a year, I had some valuable 'me' time. And I wasn't about to spend... Continue Reading →
1000 Readers = 1000 Thank-yous!
I say '1000 Readers' rather than '1000 Followers' because WordPress is different to Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. First of all, I don't count it as social media, although it's certainly a social space. It's primarily a Content Management System (where you can create and publish content) and a Blogging Platform (where you can regularly... Continue Reading →
The Quarantine Diaries #44: Letting Go
Sometimes I have trouble letting go. Whether it's a fixed idea, an obsession, or my feelings about a particular person or thing. Without the ability to let go, however, there can be little peace of mind or spiritual progress in life. So I'm actively (or should that be 'passively'?) learning to let go when I... Continue Reading →
The Quarantine Diaries #42: One Year On
It's exactly a year since I started this 'Quarantine Diaries' series. I consider this a kind of 'blogiversary,' as prior to this, I had only posted the odd short story and a few excerpts from my work-in-progress novel. How the world in general, and my life in particular, has changed over this time! The first... Continue Reading →
Interviewed for Spillwords ‘Spotlight on Writers’
I am grateful to Spillwords Press for taking the time to interview me for their 'Spotlight on Writers' series. This was a very pleasant surprise at the start of the New Year. If you want to find out a little more about me, and the inspiration behind my writing, head over to Spillwords to read... Continue Reading →