Blogs

Frank Tuohy (1957 [1970]) The Animal Game The Animal Game is Frank Tuohy’s first novel, published in 1957 and out of print now. Think of Graham Greene. Then think of Frank Tuohy. I’d guess you’ve heard of the former and not the latter. I hadn’t heard of him either, until I read his story Live Bait in a collection of short stories selected by David Miller, That Glimpse of Truth. 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Written. We’ve all got our...

It’s been thirty years since I watched The Breakfast Club. I truanted from real life and took a step back into Shermar High school where it’s always Saturday detention in 1984. The Simple Minds hold play with a number one both sides of the Atlantic, Don’t You Forget About Me? The only thing I could remember about the original was Molly Ringwald and one of the other detainees admitted they didn’t need to be in detention but they’d nowhere else to...

In Their Own Words is a celebration of the variousness of contemporary poets living and writing in the UK today. 56 poets talk about their own poetic voices and their work. Essential reading for anybody who cares about poetry. In Their Own Words: Contemporary Poets on Their Poetry, Edited by Helen Ivory and George Szirtes I can’t imagine someone who has no interest in poetry even picking this book up, so to say that if you enjoy contemporary...

It’s been a wonderful week for poetry and prose with writers using innovative techniques and genres. Story of the week goes to love-writing for powerful experimental short fiction. Staccato sentences, visual disturbances on the page and a tragic central story successfully conveys a man’s mental health. love-writing takes risks with her work and this one’s definitely worth it: http://www.abctales.com/story/lovewriting/little-white-box It’s a two...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b063lywk/imagine-summer-2015-5-rich... I didn’t know it but I like Richard Flanagan, even though I’ve not read any of his books. Grandson of illiterates and descended from criminals transported to Tasmania, his father revered books but to be an author was not something he expected. A drowning accident in which he seemed to understand for a moment the interconnectedness of all things changed that. He continued...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b063f57q/dont-take-my-baby This drama comes with lots of baggage. Around 3000 children are removed from disabled people every year. Writer Jack Thorne has distilled their voice and created composite characters that let them speak. Tom (played by Adam Long) is partially sighted. He is full- time carer and lover of Anna (Ruth Madley). She has a muscle wasting disease and every two years is told by specialist...

In response to The Daily Post's writing prompt: "Finite Creatures." It’s front page news in the Observer , Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute. Pages of piffle devoted to it. What is Her Royal Highness hiding in the royal wardrobe, an SS guard’s uniform? I’d say give her a little slack. She was a kid. Kids do stupid things. I’ve done it myself. Well not that exactly. But on Friday night I watched a programme on Channel 5,...

Jon McGregor (2013) This Isn’t The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You. Jon McGregor winds his way across a mythical country, it might even be England, from Horncastle in the first story ‘That Colour’ to Marshchapel in ‘I’ll Buy You A Shovel’ in this collection of thirty short stories. ‘Sharp, dark and hugely entertaining’ says the blurb on the cover, a quote from Observer. ‘Haunting and brilliant’ Independent. I’m underwhelmed. Take...

I’d a vague notion of who Alan Johnson was. I read this book because I wanted to chart his journey from ordinary working-class bloke—when the book begins, ‘a seventeen-year old shelf stacker at Anthony Jackson’s supermarket on the Upper Richmond Road in East Sheen’— to becoming an MP in the Conservative government under Thatcher, or John Major. I couldn’t remember which Prime minister it was. Alan Johnson became a Labour MP and severed in the...

We're always thrilled to welcome new writers and we've had some wonderfully talented people joining this week. One of them is the winner of our Story of the Week, and it seems we're not alone in our appreciation - when we flagged it up on Facebook it recieved over 2000 engagements which I think is a record for ABCtales in such a short time! Congratulations to David WJ Lee for Grown Man Cries in The Bahamas - we can't wait to read part two...