Blogs

Thank you to all our writers - old and new - for keeping ABCTales crammed full of the most wonderful prose and poetry, and thank you too, to our team of brilliant editors and all the others who so generously give their feedback. For poem of the week, I found myself torn between Accidentallyexisting's 'Boldy a Woman' which reminded me just how much I miss the lovely Bee, and maggyvaneijk's '2016'. In the end maggy just pipped past the post, but...

Roll up. Roll up. You too could become one of the super-rich. The kind of person that if they won a couple of million on the National Lottery would hand the winnings to their son or daughter and advise their child to buy lunch and keep the change, but don’t give any to some poor bastard, because they’ll probably spend it on drink and drugs. SECRET #1. DON’T BE THE BEST. BE THE ONLY. I’ve been reading the Sunday Mail ’s sly propaganda campaign...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/under-lock-and-key Under Lock and Key highlights many of the problems discussed in caring for vulnerable people with complex needs. This shows how 'total institutions' work. I tackled this theme directly in my unpublished novel Hut's and more indirectly (I like to think in a Hitchcock fashion) in my novel Lily Poole . https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lily-Poole-Jack-ODonnell/dp/1783522356

Before you turn away with a sigh, this is not another expose of D.Trump esq. or his minions. You've probably got better things to do on a Wednesday, but I just wanted to tell you that today (8th March, 2017) for one day only, I'm giving away copies of my fourth collection of 'nostalgedy' stories, ' Giving A Bull Strawberries '. You might just find it amusing! (I'm not overdoing this 'hard sell', am I?)

The film makes excellent use of the book by Paula Hawkins. We keep the story word for word and the cinematography proves it is now a film. Not hard, we get shots from the train, shots of mysterious badness in the woods neart the tunnel, plenty of violent war between the sexes. Girl on a Train is a good old-school suspense thriller and we get full value. There is more than one death,only one is accidental, more than one character is bed-hopping...

I was out watching the fitba yesterday, having a couple of pints and old Lawrie was trying to explain what pub he’d been in, years ago, not by telling us where it was, rather by telling us who’d once owned it and who’d given him the money to buy the pub, but he couldn’t remember that either. ‘It was a great Scottish author.’ That was the clue to unravelling the mystery. ‘William McIlvanney,’ I said. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘A great...

There were some fabulous Romantic efforts this month and I loved reading such diversity: Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Ewan’s poem has the hallmarks of history: https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/sheep-station-perkolilli Linda Wigzell Cress does rhyming with mythology to great effect: https://www.abctales.com/story/linda-wigzell-cress/comrades Cacophony of voices creates a cutting storm of ice: https://www.abctales.com/story/...

Our picks for the month of February, chosen by Alex (london_calling79): Spring on our doorsteps and the twilight world waking up again, I've chosen Stephen Thom's 'Flare' to light the way as February's Story of the Month. With its snarling dialogue contrasting with some gorgeous snowy imagery, the cold intensity at its heart will help you savour every drop of new Spring light. A different type of light pervades Ewan's 'The man on the other end...

Sometimes I read some of the writings on Abc and also the work of modern published fiction writers and it seems like woe and misery from start to finish. With the exception of some good Nature writing and a bit, I wish there was more, of humour the same themes crop up again and again. Women reliving their abusive encounters, individuals going to the pub or the party all set for a good night out but only finding isolation and pain at the bottom...

Sometimes …when I have time to my self…not often…I research places or things I’d like to see someday… and I’ve saved snippets of information on all sorts of interesting places….My documents folder is jam packed with ‘where I want to go’ places and things I’d like to see…but my passport is still unstamped and my airline miles couldn't take me to the next town but still...I can dream..perhaps when I retire??...Anyway my current find is a Botanical...