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It’s funny the little things that can make your day special. Small and seemingly inconsequential to others but can be a major uplift to the recipient…The little finds that make you smile…the unexpected helping hand extended just when you need it…the simple thank you…the welcome from a neighbor…found money when you forgot you put it there… The world can seem harsh and functional and day to day grinding when you are in the middle of your working...

This week from Philip Sidney: Lots of great reads this week but the two pieces that captured my attention were: 1. A chapter from scriptwriterm, a lovely piece of armchair travel. https://www.abctales.com/story/scriptwriterm/between-lines-chapter-10 2. The poetry pick is a moving piece about a cat - and so much more. Well done YaseminB! https://www.abctales.com/story/yaseminb/yumak-and-arisha Spring has sprung! And that's this week's inspiration...

Lots of great reads this week but the two pieces that captured my attention were: 1. A chapter from scriptwriterm, a lovely piece of armchair travel. https://www.abctales.com/story/scriptwriterm/between-lines-chapter-10 2. The poetry pick is a moving piece about a cat - and so much more. Well done YaseminB! https://www.abctales.com/story/yaseminb/yumak-and-arisha Spring has sprung! And that's this week's inspiration point - SPRING (at last :))...

I recently read Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project , which I also reviewed. He uses much the same framework in his debut novel The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau . Here he claims the book’s author is not himself but Raymond Brunet and he is simply translating it, much the same as he claimed the leading authorial voice in His Bloody Project was not Graeme Macrae but the triple murderer, his Scottish ancestor, Roderick Macrae. I’m usually...

His Bloody Project was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016. Fiction often dresses up as fact. In the preface Burnet cites Gaelic Ossian poetry as a fake widely lauded for being factual, but the best fiction always does seem factual, or else it’s not worth reading. As a murder there’s no mystery. In the small crofting community of Culuie, with around 55 residents, seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae took a croman and flaughter, a kind of pick...

I'm nearly recovered. when i started on ABC I was sick and getting sicker. I wrote for awhile but ended up so exhausted that writing became nearly impossible. I was in the darkness of deep fatigue for almost a year. I'm feeling much better now and that improvement in health is manifesting itself with the energy of my writing. Nothing makes me happier. I hope you folks will tune in because as Al Jolson said at the beginning of the sound age in...

I read The Power and the Glory years ago. But there’s no glory in forgetting the books I read faster than the faces I meet. If pushed I might have known it was set in Mexico and I would have remembered the main character was a whisky priest, but not that he was the narrator. What stuck was a scene in which the whisky priest comes to a small village and one of the peons that come to meet him goes back to his family and friends and urges them to...

It was difficult to pin down the picks for this week on ABCTales due to some gorgeous work. However, Story of the Week goes to Noo with ‘Suddenly’ for stunningly crafted characters and an unshakeable sense of isolation. Poem of the Week goes to ephraimcrud in what is a fine and illuminating poem with slant perspectives which resonate long afterwards. https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/suddenly https://www.abctales.com/story/ephraim-crud/where-...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08j8jj3/smile-the-nations-family-album Produced and directed by the aptly named Kath Pick this programme interested me for a lot of reasons. I’m of the not-another-fucking-baby picture generation that doesn’t feel the need to endlessly catalogue what I’ve eaten or drank or where I’m going or have been on Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. My mobile phone isn’t very mobile. Half the time I can’t...

We’ve had a hiatus since our last abctales readings evening, but are happy to announce that we have a new event planned for London on Wednesday 10 May. It’s an opportunity for anyone to come along and read their work – poetry or prose – to a small audience of fellow writers, family, friends and lovers of literature. We hope to see some familiar faces, but don’t be deterred if you’re new on the scene – new writers and first time readers are...