So I’ve taken today to rewrite those pesky chapters that have been crowding my mind with alternate pathways. I knew the first three or four were solid but then the murky waters began. So many…too many ways to turn the tides so to speak and I know there will only be one that will feel right… but getting there can be a major trial and error. I always see both sides to stories, arguments, questions. Maybe that is the curse of a writer, seeing all...

Our Picks of the Month for May have been chosen by blackjack-davey (who's also got a very good idea for a competition in the near future!). Here they are: Honourable mentions this month go to Yvonne Anderson’s It was Our Home where we experience the writer’s displacement and dawning recognition that the traffic and bustle and soup kitchen serving the homeless is where she now lives and by extension this is who she is... the Edwardian villa has...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b075f78j/tim-rhysevans-all-in-the-mind?suggid=b075f78j I must admit I hadn’t a scooby who Tim Rhys-Evans is. I find out here he’s the auteur of a male voice choir, Only Men Aloud, which won a competition called Last Choir Standing, which led to sell out concerts and record gigs and an MBE from the Queen. None of these things interest me. What interests me is Rhys-Evans’s admission that he’s got a mental...

Norway is one of the richest places in the world. Its citizens are well catered for. Hence Karl Ove can bounce from the Writer’s Academy, where he gets a bit of paper, a certificate, saying he’s a writer, to work in a radio station when he’s called up and claims he can’t serve because he’s a conscientious objector, to another course studying Fine Art. That takes him from around aged 19 until he’s 26. By the time this instalment is finished he’s...

I was just going to feature one of her pieces as our daily pick, but having read everything Julia posted on ABCTales I think she deserves a bit more space. If you were around a few years ago, you knew her as Overthetop1. Her mum writes here too as seashore. Her real name is Julia and she died suddenly and very tragically last week. In celebration of her wonderful talent here are four of my favourite pieces - but really, if you have time, read...

A great Story from a writer new to ABCtales gets the award this week: http://www.abctales.com/story/scintilla/kiss A Poem from a long time member, but a real gem: http://www.abctales.com/story/kilb50/today-we-dressed-and-pretended-be-rich And an Inspiration Point produced after re-reading the work of an original member: http://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip Congrats go to all!

Scottish Cup Final 1980. I was part of the 70 000 crowd. Pitch invasion. Brought up in a deprived home where you always wanted the Indians to beat the cowboys, and Celtic to beat Rangers, no matter the odds and how many referees and masonic linesman they had in their pockets, I wanted one of those horses the police had. Cup-final win by a George McCluskey goal. My good mate Dav Prentice (R.I.P) was just the kind of arsehole that would say things...

A very hard choice this week - both for poetry and prose. in fact it's only the puzzle of how to put them both on the front page that I haven't chosen two poems and two stories. Perhaps we'll have to include a second place... Anyway.. Story of the Week goes to MJG for Breaking Rules, which is a real tour de force and I hope she submits it as suggested: http://www.abctales.com/story/mjg/breaking-rules Poem of the Week is Sam Hennig's The Tube,...

The blurb on the cover by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks reads: ‘A masterpiece. Beautiful, harrowing and deeply human’. You may remember that Rebecca Skloot immersed herself in the story of how a poor black woman, daughter of tobacco farmer, contracted a virulent cancer that killed her, but her cells were taken without her or her family’s knowledge and literally spawned a billion-dollar industry while those left...

Her first (very successful) foray into publishing 'B is for Breast Cancer' took form on ABCTales and now her next book is being published tomorrow. Here's the lowdown: A funny new children’s book by Christine Hamill about the unfunny subject of cancer Available 18 May 2016 | €8.99, PB, 180pp, age 9+ | ISBN 978 1 9104 1151 3 Dear Harry Hill I know you must be really busy but please, please take a minute to help me. I am a twelve-year-old boy and...