Blogs

ABCtales Critiquing Service - good reports!

Posted by tcook on Mon, 26 Mar 2012

Over the years many of you have asked for a critiquing service and it has taken a long time to find (a) someone good enough to do it well and (b) someone who will charge what we regard as a reasonable fee. Finally, we've done it! Lorraine Mace is a freelance writer, columnist and tutor for the Writers Bureau. Winner of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Competition (comic verse category), Lorraine's fiction, features and humour have appeared...

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN ABCTALES.COM

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 22 Sep 2017

We have had to suspend the automatic joining facility for a while so if you would like to join us please email admin@abctales.com with your desired username and we will set up an account for you. It's all free!

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 22 Sep 2017

Our first weekly picks for Autumn! Story of the Week is love_writing's 'The Oil Refinery' and Poem of the Week is Di_Hard's 'time travelling' - both wonderful pieces, so if you haven't read them yet, please do, and congratulations to the talented writers who created them. https://www.abctales.com/story/lovewriting/oil-refinery https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/time-travelling Here's this week's Inspiration Point: https://www.abctales.com/...

Roxane Gay (2017) Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.

Posted by celticman on Tue, 19 Sep 2017

Roxane Gay is the author the New York Times bestseller Bad Feminist the tag on the cover of the book tells the reader. This is an easy book to read in terms of thin chapters and the subject matter of need and greed and what makes us what we are. This is right up there with the classic, Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face. Chapter 1 of Gay’s autobiography is one sentence long. Everybody has a story and a history. Here I offer mine with a memoir...

POETRY MONTHLY

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Tue, 19 Sep 2017

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 01 Sep 2017 Poetry Monthly – September Hello and thanks for the summery, whimsical contributions to August’s Poetry Monthly, Blue Sky Tree High! There were some beauts and here are some to re-read: https://www.abctales.com/story/ed-crane/un-dia-en-las-palmas https://www.abctales.com/story/hedgehog1/dandelion https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/grande-dame Summer’s not quite over, but September...

Risk, BBC 2 10pm, directed by Laura Poitras

Posted by celticman on Mon, 18 Sep 2017

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b095vnpx/risk I didn’t like Julian Assange after watching this programme, but I didn’t have to spend six or seven years filming him and his cult of followers, much of the time in the Ecuadorian Embassy, as director Laura Poitras did. It’s unusual for a director to speak directly to the audience with her misgivings about Assange’s motives as Poitras does. It’s the equivalent of actors breaking the third wall,...

Black Lake, BBC 4, 9pm, 9.40 pm, Directors: Jonathan Sjoberg, David Berron, Peter Arrhenius.

Posted by celticman on Sun, 17 Sep 2017

uk/programmes/b081clh5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0821s1b I watched episodes one and two of Black Lake last night. I’ll be following the other six episodes. I’m a bit of a Wallander anorak, loved wooly jumpers and The Killing, so a Swedish thriller with subtitles is a must see. A group of friends meet and drive to the Black Lake hotel complex, a remote ski resort that is so near the Norwegian border they joke they’re not even sure they’ve...

Today slow start due to a head cold...

Posted by maisie on Sat, 16 Sep 2017

Today slow start due to a head cold...

Stacey Dooley Investigates: Young Sex for Sale in Japan

Posted by celticman on Sat, 16 Sep 2017

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04t0h2b/stacey-dooley-investigates-young-sex-for-sale-in-japan I watched this half-drunk on Tuesday night, after the Celtic horror show. I quite like Stacey Dooley, a kind of Miss Marple with sensible shoes sorting the world out, but she’s breezy and young and pretty. It depends, of course, what you mean by young and pretty. Japan has a bit of history here. You’re probably aware of the rewriting of history...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 15 Sep 2017

Posted by airyfairy: There is so much good stuff on ABC Tales at the moment that it becomes increasingly difficult to make the week's Picks, which this week have involved much deliberation and pleasurable re-reading. Story of the Week is Celticman's 'relapse prevention therapy'. It's a stunning piece of work, haunting and disturbing, but with an inner strength that makes you want to weep: https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/relapse-...

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