Insertponceyfrenchnamehere's blog

Our Story and Poem of the Month for May, very kindly picked by Alex Smith (london_calling79): With summer on the doorstep and the football season’s dying embers giving rise to summer sports, of course I’ve gone for something suitably dichotomous for the poem of the month. Di_hard’s sumptuous and sure-footed paean to bluebells: https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/bluebells For the story of the month it had to be johnshade’s towering and ominous...

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 24 May 2019 Shakespeare is such an inspiration so thank you to Airyfairy for coming up with the brilliant idea - so many good pieces arose that I had to pick two. Story of the week goes to Jane Hyphen's tragic history, Anthony and Cleopatra - I defy you to read and not weep: https://www.abctales.com/story/jane-hyphen/anthony-and-cleopatra Poem of the week goes to Forest Forever's comic/tragic/history - true love...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 17 May 2019 This week's picks are a bit different from usual in that they are linked. It goes to show how reading another person's work can spark a different but related bit of creativity in ourselves, with wonderful results. The original piece was Jane Hyphen's brilliant story 'I Woke Up (in inverted commas)'. Whether as warning for the future or commentary on the present, it sends shivers down the spine: https://www...

Our Story and Poem for the month of April has very kindly been selected by Parson Thru: Poem: Pick of the Month, Di_Hard hits the nail on the head https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/change-address digging into our attachment to bricks and mortar - spiritual, rather than the more usual financial. Her well-chosen metaphor strikes a chord with many. seafret https://www.abctales.com/story/seafret/platform-remembering produces a crisp piece with a...

I was going to open this with a complaint about the rain, (for those of you outside the UK it is almost illegal for us not to comment on the weather at least once in any piece of writing) - but the sun has just come out - so things are looking up! Lots of wonderful pieces to choose from this week, as ever, but my personal picks are as follows: Poem of the Week goes to the deeply moving 'Wear and Tear' by london_calling79, and our Story of the...

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 I hope you've had a lovely break over the holiday season. I certainly have - and it's been much enhanced by the good writing on the site. Stroy of the week was tough but I've gone fo a value busting 4 for the price of 1 fom Airyfairy with her delightful modern fable https://www.abctales.com/story/airyfairy/tower-strength-ip-part-4-4 Poem of the week was rivetting and gave me the shivers, well done...

It's the most beautiful day where I live - the first really warm one of the year, so it's been a great pleasure to sit here by the open door into the garden catching up on some of the wonderful writing that's been posted this week. Poem of the Week was particularly hard as there's been so much good stuff, and I would like to give a very honourable mention to Philip Sidney for 'Misogyny in the 70s' which has been pipped to the post by a hair's...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 12 Apr 2019 Really difficult to make choices this week, with lots of splendid stuff on the site. In the end though, Story of the Week had to be alexislebarouder's 'The Misery of Flight' for all sorts of reasons, the main one being that it is simply, as one commenter said, great storytelling: https://www.abctales.com/story/alexislebaroudeur/misery-flight A different kind of misery in our funny and heartfelt Poem of the...

Our Story and Poem for March, very kindly selected by Philip Sidney: If March was a colour I’d say it was that of a fading bruise across a drab-dawn grey, smattered with pale smudges of dirty mauve, greeny-yellow and tender pink. But on ABCtales March has been gold. The deep old gold of a throaty laugh from mikesize1: https://www.abctales.com/story/mikesize1/christ-stitches and Sean Mcnulty’s: https://www.abctales.com/story/sean-mcnulty/eulogy-...

This last week of March has been a colourful one - thanks to a great inspiration point. It's been like sifting though a tin of chocolates to choose two delectable pieces - but - our poem of the week is a gorgeous evocation of the season from Rhiannon: https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/wild-daffodils-field-and-meadow Our story of the week is an irreverent and humorous piece from Mikesize1: https://www.abctales.com/story/mikesize1/christ-...