Blogs

'Lily Poole' by Jack O' Donnell

Many ABCTales members pledged for Jack O’Donnell’s debut novel ‘Lily Poole’ to be published by Unbound and now it’s a fabulous reality. Here are two great reviews from ABCTales Editors, Sooz and PhilipSidney to spur readers on: Philip Sidney, ABCTales: 'I read Jack O’Donnell’s haunting novel, Lily Poole some time ago and yet it stays with me like a memory from my own life; such is the intimacy of the writing. Lily Poole gets close to you, seeps...

S.E Hinton (2000 [1967]) The Outsiders

It’s almost fifty years since The Outsiders was published. ‘The Original Teenage Rebel Story’ proclaims the tag on the cover. I’m sure William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had the same banner headline, but in yeh olde worlde English. Hinton was only seventeen when she wrote it. And like fourteen-year old Ponyboy, the first-person narrator, you can imagine her trying to impress her English teacher and scrape a better grade by turning a...

Scotland's Game, part one, Playing for Money. (Missing Person report: Where is David Murray?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pqpfp The best thing for me about the Rio Olympics was it was on in the middle of the night because I didn’t need to watch it. Not that I would have. I couldn’t give a toss of your caber how many gold medals Britain racks up. There’s only one sport, one club that I follow and one team I support, Glasgow Celtic. And I’m bigoted and bitter enough to remember comedians with eighties punchlines Loadsamoney and the...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Two wonderful pieces for you. Our Story of the Week is Stephen Thom's brilliantly disturbing 'Sticks' and our Poem of the Week is Overthetop1's powerful 'The Return' posted by seashore. I thoroughly recommend both! http://www.abctales.com/story/stephen-thom/sticks http://www.abctales.com/story/seashore/return I hope the Inspiration Point sparks your creativity into action: http://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip .. and now I'm off to try to...

Hapoel Beer Sheva 2 Celtic 0 (4-5 on agg): Poor Celtic Bhoys back in Champions League group stage

Hapoel Beer Sheva beat Celtic on the night and caught a dose of the Scottish disease, the Celtic disease, of glorious defeat in victory. This game will be forgotten. The only thing that matters is who goes into the draw for the Champions League. Recently, Celtic have been taking one step forward and two steps back. This was a reminder of the Ronnie Roar night, but our last manager didn’t think we’d make the group stages, which was fair enough...

It's been a while.

I think that it is time for me to start writing again. It has been almost two years since I have written anything on this blog and I need to get back to my passion. I have had an exttremely rough year so far dealing with my mental illness as well as some pretty drastic change in my life. Now, I am focusing on my family as well as my faith and am persuing a path in education, music, and writing. I will use my talents to minister to others (...

IF YOU WANT TO JOIN ABCTALES

If you want to join please email us at admin@abctales.com and tell us the user name you would like. We'll set up your account and email you a password which you will be able to change to one you can remember when you log on for the first time. We are not admitting new members on automatic registration at the moment - but we'd still love to have you! Apologies for this hassle - but it is essential

Daniel Murphy (2014) Schooling Scotland: Education, equity and community.

The kids are back at school. You know what that means, the school run, clogged streets and roads. Banners hung outside school gates warning parents that ‘Parking here is dangerous and selfish’, but some park there anyway, because it doesn’t apply to them, they’ll just be a minute and the people that are dangerous and selfish are the ones without cars, because their poor wee Daren might get wet and catch cold. My response isn’t two fingers in a V...

Here is my interview with... ugly muggins

https://authorsinterviews.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/here-is-my-interview-... I can't claim any great credit here. Talking about yourself is easy. Talking about someone else, now that's a hard one.

FRIENDSHIP

When I hear people say ‘my husband/wife/partner is my best friend’, I don’t know whether to be envious and reassess my own life, sympathise, or just vomit. For though my husband and I love each other and have done for over 40 years, I would not call him my Best Friend. We enjoy some of the same things, have some friends in common and agree on many things – but disagree on many more. We respect and admire each other and love our large extended...

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