Blogs

Antony Beevor (1998) Stalingrad.

‘Time is blood.’ Stalingrad won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Why does Antony Beevor’s account of a battle fought over 80 years ago still resonate? ‘The Great Patriotic War’ ideology derives from Stalingrad’s epic scale of the suffering and dead first appeared in Pravda . Around four million ‘German’ soldiers pushed into the Soviet Union. Around a quarter were Austrians, Romanians...

Story and Poem of the Month

Our Story and Poem of the Month for August, very kindly chosen by hudsonmoon:

Jesus is the Messiah. What Does Messiah Mean?

What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? The Messiah is the way to God. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." The one who came from Heaven to take us back to Heaven. Jesus said, "In my father's house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you I will come back to take you there." John 14:1-6. The Messiah is the mediator between God and man,...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by airyfairy. Thank you to all our writers for another wonderful week of contributions. Our Story of the Week is is blackjack-davey's haunting 'Funny billies'. Wonderful writing, a haunting theme, and an ending both disturbing and beautiful: Funny billies | ABCtales Poem of the Week is Ewan's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls (The Centre Seethes)'. Again, wonderfully written and very disturbing, for very different reasons: For Whom The Bell Tolls...

A WEDDING SONG

Anna & Buster 410 Sussex Ave Buster & Anna Brown Pappa and Baba Tom A Swim! Tom's Pedal-car Plus Ankle-biter

Poetry Book Awards 2025 Longlist

Fingers crossed...

MY BEST 5 WRITERS AUG '25

My current best Writers on AbcTales August 2025 5. luigi_pagano – Luigi 4. The Story Teller – JPB 3. Caldwell – Christopher 2. rhiannonw – Rhiannon 1. swindonwoody – Maggie And we have a promising newcomer, Carrie Brown.

Lizzy Stewart (2022) Alison.

Alison is quite beautiful. I bought this graphic novel for a quid. I’d like to say its smudged cover art stood out. But I know less about art than music. There are, of course, different kinds of art and music. In terms of making a living from art, 99% have no chance, Graphic novelists and poets have less of a chance that that. Alison, the narrator, whose life we follow from pane to pain in 1958, in Bridgeport, Dorset. There she is as a baby with...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Thanks to everyone who's posted their stories and poems this week. As always, very hard to choose my favourites but here goes: Story of the Week is Lille Dante's breathtaking sweep of a story 'The Boy With The Telescope' Poem of the Week goes to Lenchenelf for her wonderful 'Lit' https://www.abctales.com/story/lille-dante/boy-telescope https://www.abctales.com/story/lenchenelf/lit Big congratulations to both! Here's the new Inspiration Point:...

Mandy Haggith (2025) The Lost Elms. A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees—and the fight to save them.

‘Stand under a tree and exchange breath with it’. Can you love a tree? Mandy Haggith likes to think so. My track record is mottled. My mates and me attacked trees with knives to practice stabbing. What kind of tree? I’ve no idea. A tree is a tree. We also tried cutting one down with a hand axe. The tree refused to die. We hardly made a dent in it. You don’t of course dent trees. The Scolytus scolytus beetle is a serial elm tree killer and far...

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