Blogs

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Week - 2 The risks & rewards: Loss of entire investment, unlikely but acceptable. Don’t risk what you can’t lose! Whether you’re literally rolling the dice or investing in speculative financial instruments, it’s sound policy not to take out a mortgage on your house to do so. The events of this week highlight why this is so. “Flush me J!” That movie line popped into my head as I observed some...

Thank you for all the wonderful pieces on the site this week. There has been some stunning work, and it's been very hard to make the Picks of the Week. Poem of the Week goes to Di Hard's beautiful 'Getting Ready'. Beautiful, sensuous language, and a real feeling of strength and renewal. There are many layers to this poem, and it rewards any number of readings: Getting Ready | ABCtales Story of the Week is 'My New Nemesis', the latest fascinating...

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Week - 1 The goals: Write every week. I guess that’s the main goal and the only reason I’m using this particular platform is because I’m already on it and don’t need to set something up. I’ve never tried writing something on a regular basis. Wait, that’s wrong. I wrote a weekly roller hockey column for a town kids league. It showed up in a very local paper, but it did have my name on the line! That...

https://soundcloud.com/5x15/george-saunders-and-max-porter-in-conversation Chop a Chekov story into pieces. Echo of class at Syracuse. Break up a story, a page at a time. Forces us to ask that question, why do I keep reading? If I read a paragraph I’m in a different place than before, where is it? Granular level. More irritating if the story is really good (cf, working with a shit story). Forcing the pause. Sit there for a few minutes asking,...

Storyville, Whirlybird-Live Above LA, BBC 4, BBC iPlayer, director Mark Yoka. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000sc9j/storyville-whirlybird-live-above-la Bob and Marika Tur captured the police chase on the Los Angeles freeways and the arrest of O.J. Simpson as he parked up his Bronco. Streamed live, it was watched by over 80 million- largely-America viewers. They were at the peak of their power. They witnessed the highs and lows of the...

If anything, the Covid-19 crisis and adapting to lockdown and restrictions has forced creatives of all ilks to rethink their processes without abandoning their chosen path. A subtle connectivity that can ignite the spark through a passing conversation. I found myself over the past month in a slump. That post-novel funk that seeps in after you type THE END. My project is finished, I know this because I have no desire to go back in and add/delete...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-little-stranger All Gothic fiction requires a big house, a crumbling manor, think Dracula or Frankenstein with unruly peasants at the door with their torches. Before they’re invited in, of course, they’ve got to wipe their feet. Here we have Hundreds Hall, and like its master, second world war pilot, scarred and shambling Roderick Ayres (Will Poulter) the centre cannot hold and everything flies apart. He’s...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0940193 An ornate key turns up on your pillow, it doesn’t fit anything in the house. You ask other members of your family. Nobody knows how it got there. Did it teleport from somewhere else? You hear knocking sounds. Your neighbours come to complain. It goes on all night. It goes on for weeks on end. Months. Who’s doing it and why? Your Irish granny says it’s the work of the devil. A young pretty girl is the...