Pick of the day
"This Isn't England"
Posted by Lille Dante on Fri, 02 Oct 2026
John took the mug down from the cupboard without thinking. White porcelain with a chipped rim, its printed red cross faded from years of washing up. He didn’t look at it. He didn’t need to. His hand knew its weight. He filled it with tea from the pot. Drank half and left the rest on the kitchen table. The mug sat there, stubborn and familiar. The only thing in the flat that hadn’t changed in years.
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Frankenplot: Dark is the light.
Posted by celticman on Sat, 26 Sep 2026
The wind tried to bury him. Hunted and haunted him, but the desert silence was the food and drink he needed. If he hadn’t been so tired. Squinted and shut his eyes, he’d have seen that the devil was no longer walking up and down the world but had drawn closer.‘Son of Lazarus, the devil whispered. ‘How far have you come and where are you going?’Read more
Poem of the week
Frankenplot: The Hacker
Posted by Ewan on Tue, 29 Sep 2026
With many many apologies to EAP.
Well, you asked for it. This is a Frankenplot poem.
Image created using canva.com from PD elements
Features
Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point
A big thank you to everyone who's posted their stories, poems and blogs on ABCTales this week - it's been a real pleasure to read them.
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New Writing Challenge By SoulFire77 - Win Us Some Money!
Soulfire77 has very generously offered us a donation for each scary story posted between now and October 30th, so please fire up your laptops and follow his instructions below.
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Story and Poem of the Month
Our Story and Poem of the Month for August, very kindly chosen by Jane Hyphen:
These are my choices for the month. So hard to choose! I could have mentioned more but you don't want a ramble so I've contained it as much as possible.
Read moreWant to join ABCTales?
We've had to suspend the automatic joining facility for a while so if you would like to join us please email
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Posting From Your Android Phone - Fixed!
Some of you have been having issues with posting your work using an android phone. Ewan and John our techie have been working really hard to fix this.
Read moreBee's Journey
Picks of the Month
Ghosted: A Meteorology
Posted by VeraClark on Fri, 08 May 2026
Clouds live on average for about ten minutes.
His cooking pot is pigeon grey and sturdy with non-scald handles. It still has a glass jar of rusty ground paprika inside it, a concertina bag of basmati rice.
It is psychologically ruinous to see the cooking pot. I put it in the back of the pantry space, cover it with a carrier bag.
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