Blogs

So I can wrap up my story about the hat. It's March so it's time to start thinking about golf which I'm about to think about big time on one of my collections that hasn't seen much action lately as I have been concerned with other, perhaps more serious issues. Iron Diamond Ring was conceived as a place for sports and politics and since I have found little inspiration in those catergories of late, that collection is starting to fall behind on the...

February's Story and Poem of the Month have been picked by Ray Smart (Vera): February's Story and Poem of the Month have been picked by Ray Smart (Vera): It's a privilege to read all the wonderful work and get the opportunity to choose two pieces. A tricky job indeed. Here are February's Picks of the Month. Congratulations to David Martin with his beautifully composed story An Ending. Finely written prose with a transporting, ethereal feel to it...

Although I've written a couple of novels, I consider myself to be more of a storytelling essayist. I've set up 6 collections on ABC and my immediate goal is to fill each of those collections with 25 essays. If my math is right, that will give me 150 essays. At that point, I will go about trying to get some or all of them published. I guess I'll use this blog not for any of the essays themselves but more as a recording of my thoughts as I had...

One of the great weaknesses of political debate is this idea that there’s something called left and right and our feelings must relate to them, like one was black and one was white. Red, blue, black, white or yellow are just the colours of filthy rags, rallying flags under which the desperate and the gullible assemble when the wealthy and ambitious say it’s time to fight. Doesn’t do any harm to keep the hatred going in between times. Banner-...

I doodle. It's always awesome when I find out that others doodlers do the doodling that I do and they have come up with a name for it. Apparently the doodle that I do as well as the doodle that they do is called "tangling". Next thing you know, there will be rules for "tangling" in order to differentiate it from the doodling that I do. Master tanglers will emerge to let me know that the doodles I've been doodling for the last thirty years don't...

I like to give Scottish authors a chance. I read an extract by Amy Liptrot in The Observer ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/17/amy-liptrot-i-am-a-lone-figure-in-waterproofs-the-outrun-extract ) and bought the book because I liked it. Sometimes life is that simple. What I like about it is it’s honesty. When I read Sooz’s diaries online (Harpie in ebooks) I often laugh. Yes, I’m a cruel vindictive person that revels in other folk’s...

A wonderful poem with great depths gets my pick of the week today. It's from Silver Spun Sand and I've no idea how she manages to keep on producing such high quality pieces day after day. An inspiration to us all. http://www.abctales.com/story/silver-spun-sand/painting-homeless-godly-0 Terrence Oblong's 'The Death of Andrew McGinty' is my Story of the Week. Slightly surreal and very funny as always, this has serious undertones as well. Please...

not really sure the diff between a blog and a collection. i'll try this for a minute and see if itleads ro anyhing.

I’m going to start boasting now. So if you’re the type that turns off the computer when someone posts a Facebook picture of their dinner or their cat or both – look away now. I got an O’Grade in something when I was younger. Yeh, hard to believe, but it was in economics. I found it quite simple. If something wasn’t a problem of supply then it was a problem of demand. Multiple choice A or B. Fifty-fifty chance of being one or the other. I might...

Suzanne O’Sullivan (2015) It’s All in Your Head. True Stories of Imaginary Illness. I like stories of imaginary illnesses. Dr Faraday in Sarah Waters The Little Stranger errs on the side of caution and attributes a collective form of psychosomatic illness to the aristocratic Ayre’s family staying at rundown Hundreds Hall, and the subconscious as place and time combine, the equivalent of old cartographers whom declared this be the end of the...