Story and Poem of the Month

Our Story and Poem for the month of March have been chosen by airyfairy:

 

It's been the oddest of times, but even before the lockdown started it was shaping up to be an extraordinary month on ABC Tales.  The variety and quality of writing on the site has been amazing.  It's been a pleasure to read, but really hard to make choices for the Picks.

 

It's customary to have some Honourable Mentions each month - again, not easy!  For the prose, I've been struck by some wonderful continuing stories or series, so rather than pick out individual episodes I'm going to give you a link to the author's page so you can start your journeys through their particular worlds.  I would urge you to check out, if you haven't already, Sean McNulty's tales about the antics of Dixon, McGurk and friends ( https://www.abctales.com/user/sean-mcnulty), Ice Rivers' thoughtful, subtle series about life under lockdown (https://www.abctales.com/user/ice-rivers) and artofminima's life-affirming, heartbreaking series about Marth and her life ( https://www.abctales.com/user/artofminima)

 

Our Story of the Month comes from another series - Sven Goes To War by Drew Gummerson.  I've picked out the first episode, but honestly, any of the pieces are a joy to read, for the quality of the writing, the vividness of the imagery, the energy of the imagination behind them.  And they're the funniest things I've read in a long time.  They've been one of the real pleasures of this month for me:   https://www.abctales.com/story/drewgummerson/sven-goes-war-part-1-warriors-wasteland

 

Our poets have risen to the challenge of these 'interesting times' magnificently, and I've derived a lot of comfort and strength from some of the really beautiful work on the site.  'In Winter' by the-real-jaw is a beautiful thing in itself and comes with the added bonus of a reading by the poet (https://www.abctales.com/story/real-jaw/winter).  Jenny Skinner's lovely ode to a personal autumn, 'A Time', has stayed with me since I first read it (https://www.abctales.com/story/skinnerjennifer/time-0), and right at the end of the month, Lille Dante's 'I Fall In Love With A Plague Doctor' felt like a very astute summing up of our times (https://www.abctales.com/story/lille-dante/i-fall-love-plague-doctor).

 

There was, however, one poem which stood out even among the other gems - 'Deimos' by onemorething.  It has love, observation of our times, hope, and a deep humanity.  It's our Poem of the Month, and please do read it if you haven't already:  https://www.abctales.com/story/onemorething/deimos 

 

Please keep all this wonderful work coming!