The Suicide Run has an adjunct: ‘Five Tales of the Marine Corps’. They are autobiographical short stories. In ‘My Father’s House,’ for example, begins ‘One morning in the year after the end of the war (the Good War, that is, the second War to End all Wars) when I returned to my father’s house in Virginia, and had slept long merciful hours...’ Note the world weariness, the sarcasm (the War to End all Wars, was, of course, The First World War) yet...

It’s worth paraphrasing George Orwell here: A man who gives a good account of himself is possibly lying, since any life viewed from the inside is simply a sense of defeats. Jimmy Savile never admitted defeat. The stories he told others was of his success as Bevan Boy, his tragic accident underground, prayers and miraculous recovery, stamina as cyclist and road racer, his pioneering of using turntables and records rather than bands to fill the...

A massive thankyou to all of you who have supported our three Unbound authors - they're doing really well but all need more support! There's also Jennifer Pickup's (Jennifer on ABCtales.com) Unforgivable, the follow up to her sensationally good Unbelieveable. Do support her here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/unforgivable Support Celticman's Lily Poole here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole Support lavadis's Ex here: http://unbound.co.uk/books...

A new writing competition to find the “next big thing” in children’s literature has being launched by the National Literacy Trust in partnership with Bloomsbury. The New Children’s Author Prize is set to unearth brilliant new talent in writing for children. Unpublished authors who enter the competition will be in with the chance of winning a publishing contract with Bloomsbury, publisher behind the Harry Potter series. The first prize will also...

Brendan phoned me last night. I’ve known him longer than Laughing Boy had hair. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Brendan.’ Neither of us use our mobile phones much. I don’t know where mine is (it’s just beeped somewhere behind me, because it’s out of charge, and that gives me a clue). So we’ve got to explain who we are when we phone. We did the usual how’s it gaun? flung back and forth between us, until he got down to why he was phoning. ‘I’ve got £20 for...

The third and final of our authors has now gone up on Unbound as we strive to gain funding for their books. Laurie Avadis has been a great supporter of ABCtales and his novel, 'Ex', was written on the site. It's a splendid tale of a 32 stone policeman who is determined to murder his son! See the video, read and extract and support him if you wish here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/ex Do take a look at our other two authors and support them too if...

I was out at the pub watching a Champions League match. (I won’t be saying that for a while.) Punters were crowding round the bar and the barmaid was looking through me as if I was made of glass. I bumped into Tam-who-will-remain nameless. ‘You’ll never believe it,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s put a video of somebody that looks like you up selling something?’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘But it’s really funny.’ Neither of us laughed. ‘You...

What you see is what you don’t get is a wysiwyg clause I rarely use in normal conversation. I was out last night to meet my adoring public. It was Saturday night and it was the Drop Inn so you can guarantee a crowd of at least four people and Wullie Dalziel. There’s a rule that nobody can kiss at the bar, unless it’s Brian Thompson, and he’s had a bit much and he hears some song on the Jukebox and wants to do his wee Indian dance and wants to...

http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole I used to think that writers were two exotic beasts joined by a furrowed brow -- the person that writes and the person that edits. The taxonomy has changed. Upon closer examination I recognised a third diablo poking out between the bones of the writer, clinging to the person and their reality and claiming to be an independent personality, the writer’s real self and willing to sell their souls for the quick...