Blogs

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Story of the Week is something that's stayed with me since I first read it, so that was a no-brainer, however Poem of the Week has been really difficult, and if there were a method of splitting it three ways I definitely would. Big congratulations to Pingles for 'The invisible hand' and to Rosa Cruz for 'And Lie Beneath' - and two very honourable mentions for Bear's 'Thoughts From the Kitchen' and Philip Sidney's 'Boy in a Bedroom' https://www...

Best Christmas Carols

OK, I gave in. Yesterday morning I listened to 'the 20 best carols' on one of the freview channels, might have been E4. Much to my surprise they were - not bad!. Destiny's Child's 8 days of Christmas was the closest to a trad carol. It kept the original tune and the key line 'On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me etc'. The video, ah yes, these carols truly brought home to me the power of pop videos, showed a happy Beyonce and...

Elana Ferrante (1999 [2016]) Troubling Love.

What attracted me to Elana Ferrante’s short, debut, novel was her refusal to publicise her books and the belief that a –good – book would find an audience. It seems counterintuitive, but the purity of such belief is hard to argue with, even though if I hadn’t read about her in the Observer Review , I wouldn’t know who she was and would not have read or written this review of her book. Twenty or thirty films in English are being sold to us every...

Story, Poem and Inspiration Point of the Week

Congrats go to Catherine Poarch and Noo this week. Two excellent pieces - and the IP should be lots of fun: https://www.abctales.com/story/catherine-poarch/fernundaling https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/pebbles-beach-sissy-23rd-february-2000 https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip

21st century manipulators / abusers

Abuse – to put to a wrong or improper use. To attack in words; to revile. To harm or injure by wrong or cruel treatment. (Penguin Dictionary) Manipulation – to handle or operate skillfully. To control, exploit, or influence by artful, unfair, or insidious means, esp to one’s own advantage. (Penguin Dictionary) When I write of ‘electronic devices’, I am writing about mobile-phones and their content, Tablets and their use, Ipads, laptops,...

Book of the year. Peter Wadhams (2016) A Farewell to Ice. A Report From the Arctic.

A writer has only one imperative or simple rule – read. Often I have little understanding of what I’m reading. Usually there is a but here. I do not understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but…kinda like a meme from T. S. Eliot’s Little Gidding: ‘We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started.’ Or Rumi’s parable of the elephant and six blind men. One holding onto a leg, or trunk, an...

Poetry Monthly

You had a go at kennings this month and some of the pieces were deeply imaginative. Here are three crackers: Ed Crane’s beautifully textured leather cloth war: https://www.abctales.com/story/ed-crane/leather-cloth-wars-poetry-monthly Rhiannon’s visual delight: https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/%E2%80%98icecoming%E2%80%99 Catherine Poarch’s words are charmingly inventive: https://www.abctales.com/story/catherine-poarch/ladenbox This month’...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Two brilliant pieces get my pick this week - 'Five Go To Happy Island' by Jed and Alun (with a little help from Terrence Oblong) and 'I'm sure there used to be birdsong' by Ledru who is a very welcome new member: https://www.abctales.com/story/jed-and-alun/five-go-happy-island https://www.abctales.com/story/ledru/im-sure-there-used-be-birdsong Don't forget - if you have any recommendations for either our Inspiration Point or our daily picks,...

Another ABC book gets published - if you help!

Simon Miller's Ebolowa is 87% funded on Unbound but needs your help to get over the line! The book has been on ABCtales and Simon is more than grateful for the really helpful feedback he's received from members. Now is the time to support him and pledge towards the book. You can do so here: https://unbound.com/books/ebolowa Let's get one more in the published ABC family! Ewan Laurie's Gibbous House is out on January 12th so make sure you have a...

the end of the world as we know it - but I feel fine.

The Second World War is a fading memory and America rules the world. Bill Bryson (2007) The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid: Travels Through My Childhood shows how it was won and it’s not on the front cover with a kid with a hard plastic hat painted silver, aerial attached, Pegasus’s ears pasted on, his face screwed up as he points a plastic ray gun of brightest gold, while behind him sparks fly and a surreal red and white star explodes,...

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