Blogs

Question 13 - Why girls' choices have changed in 21st century

Reasons for girls’ choice this century https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2022#:~:text=At%20mid%2D2022%2C%20there%20were,of%20males%20since%20mid%2D2011 . Question Thirteen – Why do you think that there seem to be more single women in the world today than in the past? Donna: I think it’s due to the media telling everyone: you can be who you...

Question 12 - How did the way you grew up impact you…

Question 12 – Consider the stories and roles you were exposed to when you were growing up, do you think they have been helpful, or not? Donna: I’m not sure either way. Alyss: Not. As I mentioned a few questions ago, the romantic novel is quite a thing that the headspace attaches itself to, setting up things in the imagination that aren’t real. Men don’t go after the woman they really want, in fact, I have spoken to a few who didn’t because the...

Pat Black (2025) To Pay the Ferryman.

I remember Pat Black from years ago from a defunct online magazine. One of us wrote ‘Nanny Gudgeon’s Teeth,’ and it wasn’t him, even though there was gold in that story. Good to see him becoming an international, bestselling celebrity. I thought I’d pop in and give the Ferryman a visit. ‘To Pay the Ferryman,’ is a play on words. You probably recognise the allusion to Charon. He’s the ferryman who transports souls across the river Styx to the...

Cerasus Poetry Update 2025

The moral of the story is: WRITE IT NOW!

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

The sun has just come out from behind the grey clouds for the first time in what feels like months but is probably only a week, so that’s number one on my Reasons to be Cheerful list for today. Coming in at a very close second has been the pleasure of reading through everything that’s been posted on ABCTales this week. A very big thank you to all of you who’ve contributed, not only with your writing, but with the constructive comments you’ve...

Yutka’s latest book:

https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/the-emotional-robot-and-other-poems-by-scharlie-meeuws

Fancy Dance (2023), Written by Erica Tremblay and Miciana Alise, Director Erica Tremblay.

Indians used to be the bad guys in movies. Whooping and swooping on peaceable white folk that were trying to murder them and steal their land. Familiar tropes such as the dumb blonde President that is also an insurrectionist, draft dodging, tax dodging, rapist—grab them by the pussy and friend of Jeffrey Epstein and Putin, kinda guy—are easily overused. A sympathetic look at the Seneca–Cayuga people and their allotted homeland of the Nation...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by airyfairy. Thank you, as ever, to everyone who has contributed to ABC Tales this week. So much good stuff! Poem of the Week is 'Dug' by one of our newer writers, McMedusa. Sometimes joy, gratitude and love just shine out from a piece of writing, and this is one of those times. And there's the added bonus of a beautiful picture of said 'Dug'! "Dug" | ABCtales Story of the Week is Chapter 9 of Sooz006's unsettling, scary, and complex...

Flora and Son (2023) written and directed by John Carney.

Flora and Son (2023) written and directed by John Carney. I’m not a great man for musicals. I’ll stretch to The Commitments . But recently I watched Kneecap . Like Flora and So n set in contemporary Dublin. The film was great. The music was shite. Like Flora, like son. Bertolt Brecht’s frequently quoted Motto comes to mind. It offers an excuse to seem vaguely knowledgeable, while being the opposite. In the dark time Will there also be singing?...

Joel Dicker (2002 [2022, 2024]) The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is a page turner. It has been printed multiple times. On the cover it reminds readers that seven million copies have been sold worldwide. Simon May described Joel Dicker’s novel as his ‘book of the year’. The Truth About Harry Quebert is a book within a book. Harry Quebert mentors Marcus Goldman a younger writer. He gives him the inside slant of how to become a multimillion bestseller like him. All good...

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