Blogs

A New Anthology Now Crowdfunding on Unbound

An anthology of short stories in aid of Grenfell Tower and Trauma Response Network. On the night of 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London, killing at least 87 people and injuring many more. An entire community was destroyed. For many people affected by this tragedy, the psychological scars may never heal. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that affects many people who have endured traumatic events...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

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.

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...

Risk, BBC 2 10pm, directed by Laura Poitras

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.

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...

Today slow start due to a head cold...

Stacey Dooley Investigates: Young Sex for Sale in Japan

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 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-...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

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-prevention-therapy Poem of...

The Alien Times

a chance remark...

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