Blogs

Should Asians get affirmative action? There has certainly been a train of prejudice against Asians. From the pineapple farmers of Hawaii to the Chinese who worked on the railroads... prejudice, disdain, and ignorance has defined the way of progress. Asians are often ignored in debates, are seen as stealth bombers who fly below the radar. The Yellow Peril is approaching. People are afraid of the Chinese taking over! Chiamerica. I think that...

HISTORY. It’s the fight that should have happened 5 years ago. Some would say when both men were at their peak. In 2009, the American Sports Channel ESPN, announced that contracts had been signed and the fight would take place on March 13, 2010. They’d jumped the gun. Contracts had been sent from one camp to another but not signed. Things had to be sorted. These two fighters each believed that they were the best on the planet. They were both...

INTRODUCTIONS He’s a 38 year old black American. His mother was a drug addict. His father was a good welterweight who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard, but also a drug dealer who spent 5 years in prison. Last year he earnt in excess of $100m and was the highest paid athlete on the planet. He has an ego the size of Europe. He’s been arrested for beating up his girlfriend and knocking a bouncer senseless, yet he’s appeared on the USA equivalent of...

There is gold in each of us.Find it! There is a gem in all of us.Polish it!There is myrhh around us.Relish it! There is you. There is me. We're nothing short of unique....

James Wood (2015) The Nearest Thing to Life. The Nearest Thing to Life begins with a death—that of a friend’s younger brother—and the question, “WHY?’. There’s no real answer, how could there be? But in death Wood’s looks at the obverse, and how Woods, a bibliophile, has charted the great waters of life by clinging to books and the knowledge of humanity that they provide. ‘The Why question is a refusal to accept death.’ Heaven provides an answer...

Another blistering week for poetry and stories here on ABCTales. Congratulations go to Esmerelda-O who is on a roll at the moment - watch out for her next one - for All the Suffering Sick Grey Reptiles of the Past, and to johnshade for his extraordinary Soldier's Leap. http://www.abctales.com/story/johnshade/soldier ’s-leap http://www.abctales.com/story/esmerelda-o/all-suffocating-sick-grey-rept... For this week's Inspiration Point I want you to...

"From the Collection of the Artist." Kurt Vonnegut turns up in the most unlikely of places. I’m not familiar with his writing, but I’m reading a book by Michael Lewis Liar’s Poker in which the author quotes Vonnegut below to describe how the bond market works to distort reality, and to make it seem normal, a theme the everyman Billy Pilgrim’s character stumbles into in his Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 . There is a magic moment, during which a man...

I closed the newsletter of earlier this week with the entreaty that you should all get writing and boy-oh-boy did you take me at my word. The number of new submissions has been incredible and the standard is inspiring. The two weekly picks could have gone to a few different writers but in the end these two got the decision. Poem of the week is awarded to Philip Sidney for Wolf Fish : http://www.abctales.com/story/philip-sidney/wolf-fish and...

I’m not sure why Self-Publishing should have an exclamation mark! But I’m not going to argue with an exclamation mark. This book cost less than a pint of beer and more importantly I spent about five hours reading it. I dutifully followed all the links to some impressive Amazon sites that featured self-published authors have set up to sell their novels. I was familiar with some of the names featured. Joe Lawrence and East End Butcher Boy is...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05qkzt2/louis-theroux-transgender-kids Louis Theroux used to write books. He’s moved into the far more lucrative market of documenting those in our society that don’t quite fit in. He writes the scripts for these programmes. Has his own crew. Puts it together like a jigsaw. A novel approach. I get the feeling Louis doesn’t quite fit in either. An alien presence among those we hold at arm’s length and treat...