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...

JOHN NANDY (WELL-WISHER)'S FINAL COLLECTION - OUT NOW!

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Wed, 16 Jan 2019

John Nandy wrote for many years on ABCTales as well-wisher, and remains a much loved member of our community. His final collection, published posthumously, is available now on Amazon and his family have asked me if I could help publicise it which I do with great pleasure. You can read reviews by two lovely members below. Here's the link if you'd like to buy a copy - as you will see, we can all thoroughly recommend it!: https://www.amazon.co.uk/...

Cerasus 2019

Posted by Cerasus Poetry on Tue, 15 Jan 2019

After my first full year of running Cerasus Poetry, it is time to take stock and consider the future.

Never Stop Loving Y.A

Posted by helix888 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019

I've done three things so far, fallen in love with a Diabolic, hung out with a bunch of superheroes and got accepted to an academy where students end up dead or missing. And all thanks to... The Diabolic by S.J Kincaid Renegades by Marissa Meyer (and) Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson I'll talk about one. It was hard to choose and so I based my choice on this quote: 'I'm one of those people who has the person she marries, the one she loves, and...

The World Cup

Posted by Baker Street on Mon, 14 Jan 2019

'The Rugby World Cup'

Golden Friendship, Jim McLaren and ‘Grab a Granny’.

Posted by celticman on Fri, 11 Jan 2019

Golden Friendship, Jim McLaren and ‘Grab a Granny’. I know that all sounds a bit of a mouthful, but I’ll try and explain it to you. Golden Friendship is a club run in the 543 Club. What type of club? Jim McLaren explained it to me a long while ago. And I’m not really sure he knew himself. Like most folk, I said, ‘Aye, Jim,’ while waiting for it to fall on its arse. His mum said much the same thing today. That first day of the Golden Friendship...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 11 Jan 2019

As always, it's been a pleasure to read all the wonderful contributions to the site - not only the poetry and prose, but also the generosity of you all when you take the time to give your support, encouragement and much appreciated help to each other - so a big thank you! Our Story of the Week is the brilliant 'Chances' by jolono, and our Poem of the Week is 'Hard and Fast and Shiny' by Di_Hard. If you haven't read them yet, I can thoroughly...

Tara Westover (2018) Educated.

Posted by celticman on Wed, 09 Jan 2019

Tara Westover’s Educated has a tag-line from Barack Obama on the cover, ‘a remarkable memoir’ and in terms of sales I doubt there was a bigger selling book in 2018. I’m a voracious reader but it’s been a long time since a book kept me up to the wee small hours. I’d nibbled at Educated online, reading the first few pages, before getting the paperback and devouring almost 400 pages in one large gulp. It’s the kind of book I like, because it’s...

The Dark Side of the Moon

Posted by Baker Street on Tue, 08 Jan 2019

flip-side of the coin

Rudyard Kipling (1901 [2010]) Kim.

Posted by celticman on Mon, 07 Jan 2019

Rudyard Kipling (1901 [2010]) Kim. What can I tell you about Rudyard Kipling and Kim , you don’t already know? I’ll start at the beginning. No, I’ll start at the end and try and explain my beginnings. Kim is a work of art, a classic text that captured me completely from the first to the last, 306 pages later and roams through India, some of Afghanistan (I think) and takes in Tibet and China. It looks at the world through a lens of mysticism and...

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