Blogs

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Two very differently styled pieces for our Picks this week. What they share is passion, conviction and, of course, brilliant writing. Story of the Week is TJW's 'Lap Dance'. This writer puts his heart, soul and pretty much all the rest of him into everything he writes. This is about someone trying to build a life after experiences that refuse to let him go: Lap Dance | ABCtales Poem of the Week is Di_Hard's 'just deserts'. The frustration of...

Charles Egan (2017) Cold Is the Dawn

When people talk about literary merit, I wander away to the pub to have a pint. Since the pubs are closed, and I get smashed by a snifter of poitin , or indeed three pints, perhaps slightly more (when I’m watching Celtic) I’ll hang about. Literary merit is just a fancy way of asking if you liked the book. I don’t finish books I don’t like. Cold Is the Dawn is 427 pages. So you do the maths of how much I liked it. If like me, you have a...

The Investing Game

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$2,187.88 ) Week - 9 One is the Loneliest Number! Only one lonely positive symbol left… The only one to show a gain from last week too! 9 weeks into the game and rapidly approaching the half value loss mark. What’s going on? I should be picking out Italian marble for my villa in France by now. I tell you, this patience thing may turn out to be wildly overrated! Let’s just leave this...

CERASUS Magazine Issue # 1

CERASUS Magazine is now established as a regular quarterly publication.

Marita Conlon-McKenna (1990 [2017]) Under the Hawthorn Tree.

I’ve been reading about the Irish Famine 1845-51. I’m in the privileged position of never knowing life-threatening hunger. Under the Hawthorn Tree is a children’s book and international bestseller set in 1845—200 000 copies sold in Ireland alone. A book of 150 pages, its simple sentences and style meant I could digest the book in one sitting. I’m looking for markers that make it a success where other fail, something I could make use of. The...

The Investing Game

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$1,640.35 ) Week - 8 Coming Into London From Over the Pole! F lying in a big airliner Chickens flyin' everywhere around the plane Could we ever feel much finer? Well represented and diverse in form, dripping with potential is the pot stock sector. You know for a plant that is still illegal, there sure is a bunch of above board economic activity going on. Probably be more if the...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Chosen this week by Ewan: As always, so many good things to read and such varied styles and forms. I’ve made the usual hard choices and narrowed all the tremendous stuff down to these two. Poem of the Week is Di_Hard’s to pick up time. I loved its sinusoidal curve on the screen, conjuring the shape of waves bringing the quartz to the seashore. https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/pick-time Story of the Week is Mark Burrow’s Dayroom Conversation...

False Confessions, Amazon Prime, 2020, director Katrine Philip.

Watch False Confessions | Prime Video (amazon.co.uk) What makes this interesting is we see footage of people who have been accused of heinous crimes—they were later proved to be innocent. We see, for example, police officers interviewing Lorenzo Montoya. He was fourteen-years-old when he walked into the police station 10 th January 2000. He was convicted of the murder of Emily Johnson, a 29-year-old teacher at Skinner Middle School, and...

ABCtales Virtual Reading Night – Video Now Live!

This just in from Mark Burrow! ABCtales Virtual Reading Night – Video Now Live! We had a great evening of poetry and prose in February and I’m delighted to say the video is now live on our YouTube Channel. Our following members appear on the video: Luigi Pagano Sean McNulty Rhiannonw Lem Ross_Lowe LittleRedHat Fran Thompson hudsonmoon celticman Simon Barget airyfairy Mark Burrow Ewan Please note, some of the readings contain strong language. To...

Story and Poem of the Month

Our Story and Poem of the Month for March have very kindly been chosen by Drew Gummerson: Picks of the Month March I joined AbcTales back in 2003. I posted my first story thinking it would disappear into the black hole of the internet but then, to my amazement, I started to get email notifications, praise, comments. It encouraged me to write more. Get better. Entertain. And I made friends. Read lots of wonderful writing. So, 18 years later, it...

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