Insertponceyfrenchnamehere's blog

As per usual, the stream of good material flows ever on. It cheers me up no end to know that – every day – there is something to read that is brilliant, beguiling, or brave,. Sometimes a piece is all three. Story of the W eek was a tough choice again this week. Rosalie Kempthorne produced several of her off-kilter, disturbing, yet believable pieces. Part one of the first of them is here Jack O’ Donnell (Celticman’s) fishermen’s tale ‘The Ten...

Short stories are having a bit of a moment, and I've been contacted by a new indy publisher - Scratch Books - the only one in the UK dedicated to the genre. Here's a link to an article on them: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/30/tales-of-the-unexpected-th... They've offered to do some kind of collaboration with ABCTales, so watch this space, but in the meantime, see below for their first title which is out on March 17th - we get a...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 11 Mar 2022 Again this week we've had marvellous work on the site, some writers tackling head on the heartbreaking events of the last couple of weeks, others giving us some uplifting respite from the grim news. Poem of the Week is socialeaf's beautiful 'Then to Spring', which manages to do both, with its wonderful description of spring breaking through and its image of desperate escape from the thing 'raking at our...

Our picks for the month of February, very kindly chosen for us by marandina: It is an honour to be asked to choose the monthly picks for February at ABCTales.com. With so much high quality work, my plan was to list all stories and poems posted in February - welcome to the People’s Republic of marandina. But then I realised that would make this blog entry a bit long. So instead, I surfed the waters of the weekly and daily picks. If this process...

Such fabulous writing on the site this week and, as always, it's hard to choose Picks of the Week. And so difficult to choose a poem of the week with such powerful pieces from littleditty, poetkateholden, Ewan and lenchenelf. However, it must be lenchenelf’s wonderful poem that takes Poem of the Week this week. https://www.abctales.com/story/lenchenelf/firepower As for Story of the Week - some great writing from hudsonmoon, ice rivers and the...

We're in the middle of Storm Eunice here, with a red weather warning, and I'm sitting under a glass roof as I write this - possibly over-optimistic, but ok so far! I hope everyone else manages to stay safe, keeps their power on, and doesn't lose too many roof tiles. Anyway, reading through all the wonderful pieces you've posted has been a wonderful distraction - thank you so much for keeping ABCTales such a vibrant, supportive place My choices...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 11 Feb 2022 Two very haunting and unsettling pieces for you this week, which also have the advantage of being beautifully written. Poem of the Week is onemorething's 'The Tale of the Six Swans'. It captures the dark magic and timelessnes of the original story, giving it a new focus for our own times. It really is like reading a fairytale anew: The Tale of the Six Swans | ABCtales Story of the Week goes to Simon Barget...

Our picks for the month of January, very kindly chosen by airyfairy: I’m writing this just after the latest ABC Tales Reading Event, which only proved, once again, how much talent there is on this site. Not only the writing – the readings were pretty amazing too! So of course it’s been really hard to make this month’s choices. I’ve enjoyed so many wonderful stories and poems, and in the end it came down to the ones that gripped me right from the...

Just a reminder that on Friday (7-9pm GMT) we are having another online reading event with a fab lineup! Readers include: Drew Gummerson, Sean McNulty, Ewan Lawrie, Jane (airyfairy), Paul (marandina), Jack O'Donnell (celticman), Little Red Hat, Rachel Deering (onemorething), Ross Lowe, Michael Lawrence (donignacio), JoAnne (Penny for a thought), and Mark Burrow. Do come along and listen, we'd love to see you there. Click here to register (...

Another week another difficult choice. It was fun to read more of Terrence Oblong's flights of fancy particularly Midnight Mass Murder and Hudson Moon was on form with a surreal avian-narrated piece A Pigeon's Delight . However, Story of the Week goes to Mark Burrow's Weightless v2 . Choosing a Poem of the Week is often harder than choosing a story, this week is no exception. I won't list all of the quality work here, as there really was so much...