Insertponceyfrenchnamehere's blog

A big thank you to everyone who's posted their work on ABCTales this week and to all the lovely editors who give up their time to wave their cherry wands - and there have been masses of cherries this week! If you have any spare time, just read anything with red fruit next to the title and you won't go wrong. Here are my choices for Story and Poem of the Week: Crow by onemorething - a complex, multi-layered poem about a beautiful bird You're...

100 Quatorzains by John Wilks Review by Ewan Available in paperback from Amazon, priced at £10: 100 Quatorzain: Amazon.co.uk: Wilks, John: 9798746315168: Books or as an ebook downloadable from Cerasus's Ko-fi Shop for £5: https://ko-fi.com/s/d4ec01f463 If I had been presented with this collection anonymously, I would have guessed its author long before reading the last poem in it. John Wilks distinctive voice shines through. By turns bitter,...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 07 May 2021 I've greatly enjoyed another week of tremendous ABCTales writing, and this week's Picks are absolute stunners. Story of the Week is Mark Burrow's 'Council Estate Jesus'. Wonderful characters and dialogue that build tension so that the whole structure balances on a knife-edge. By the end, you feel you've glimpsed, and learned from, something very important: Council Estate Jesus | ABCtales Poem of the Week...

Our Story and Poem for the month of April have very kindly been chosen by love_writing. Here's what she's written: What a treat it has been for me to catch up on the amazing work on abctales. It’s been joyful and moving [I’ve had a few watery eye moments!] to not only read your work, but also to see the support and acknowledgement you give to each other in the comments sections. As writers we are often plugging away on our own, and it takes...

Two very differently styled pieces for our Picks this week. What they share is passion, conviction and, of course, brilliant writing.

Chosen this week by Ewan: As always, so many good things to read and such varied styles and forms. I’ve made the usual hard choices and narrowed all the tremendous stuff down to these two. Poem of the Week is Di_Hard’s to pick up time. I loved its sinusoidal curve on the screen, conjuring the shape of waves bringing the quartz to the seashore. https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/pick-time Story of the Week is Mark Burrow’s Dayroom Conversation...

This just in from Mark Burrow! ABCtales Virtual Reading Night – Video Now Live! We had a great evening of poetry and prose in February and I’m delighted to say the video is now live on our YouTube Channel. Our following members appear on the video: Luigi Pagano Sean McNulty Rhiannonw Lem Ross_Lowe LittleRedHat Fran Thompson hudsonmoon celticman Simon Barget airyfairy Mark Burrow Ewan Please note, some of the readings contain strong language. To...

Our Story and Poem of the Month for March have very kindly been chosen by Drew Gummerson: Picks of the Month March I joined AbcTales back in 2003. I posted my first story thinking it would disappear into the black hole of the internet but then, to my amazement, I started to get email notifications, praise, comments. It encouraged me to write more. Get better. Entertain. And I made friends. Read lots of wonderful writing. So, 18 years later, it...

Pages and pages of wonderful, vibrant and imaginative writing this week - thank you so much, all of you, for keeping us entertained and for the wonderful supportive and encouraging comments you've left for each other My picks for this week: Poem of the Week goes to Daisy, Sitting on a Grave by mark-yelland-brown and Story of the Week to Mark Burrow for Christopher L Johnson's Heroic Act. Put them both on your 'must read' list and you will have a...

Posted by airyfairy on Sun, 28 Mar 2021 We've been advised by the server that this is now likely to take place later on in the day/early evening, but there's a chance it will go on until Tuesday. Again, many apologies for the inconvenience. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and we'll be back soon! airyfairy's blog 4 reads