Memoirs are made-up stories based on a subjective version of truth. But if you are a Jehovah Witness the only truth worth knowing comes from the Bible. The literal words of God. Ali Millar’s mum was a Jehovah Witness in the same way I was brought up a Roman Catholic. She was brought up in the truth, but she couldn’t keep up the lie. Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit coming-of-age drama shone brightly. It illuminated the truth...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001gf5s/my-old-school ‘The subject of this film does not want to show his face.’ But we’re shown it anyway, in animation, in media coverage of the aftermath of the event. Seventeen-year-old Brandon Lee enrolled in Bearsden Academy in 1993. He wanted to become a doctor. You get a lot of doctors in Bearsden and dentists and their middle-and-upper-middle class ilk. Brandon Lee’s father was apparently a doctor...

https://tinyurl.com/4a46jtek On page 5 of the foreword, author Mark Burrows tells the reader, ‘the following is a work of fiction’, and whatever Kafka was thinking, people don’t turn into pigeons, but Tories are still cunts. Realism begins with truth. He might not have used those exact words. I might be factional with his realities. Anger at the fuck-you world we’re forced to live in. Shit trickles down doctrines of Tory policy makers, you...

There's definitely something about Christmas that encourages me to write stories a little more often than I would normally. I suppose it helps that the subject matter more or less suggests itself! That, and the fact that, by and large, people are generally in a good mood and looking to be entertained. With this in mind, I usually aim to publish at least a couple of Christmas-themed stories in the run-up to the main event. This year, I challenged...

Christmas tinsel overhead I go for free food and questionprobes To the Minted Methodist Church. The to the scrag end of Denise Moulds Social worker ukulele group Where no one knows the trad tune 'four strong winds' I grab instrument tuning key of irony Singing turning to the main crowd in the bigger room 'we all love Denise'. I walk to the bus stop bussses all spent, homeward went so on ward to my peace shop in New Bridge Street Yankee folkie...

Reading the week's new work on ABC is always a cheering antidote to the current 'cold snap' we're having in the UK. Thanks to all those who have posted such wonderful stuff over the last seven days. Story of the Week goes to ethancrane's brilliantly surreal and funny 'Your Mutual Aid Hourly Pay Insults My Intelligence'. Like all the best surreal writing, it has at least one toe firmly planted in reality, and there is nothing in it that seems...

Envy | Kathryn Chetkovich | Granta Magazine I came to read this in a roundabout way. A recommendation from a writer I hadn’t read. She’s posted on Betsy Lerner’s blog. I hadn’t heard of her either. Betsy was Lucy Grealy’s literary agent. I greatly admired her autobiography. Betsy’s literary agent to Patti Smith, whose recent publication Book of Days , which I haven’t read, obviously went straight in at number one in The New York Times Bestseller...

Betty by Tiffany McDaneil is my novel of the year. Yeh, I know it was published in 2020 and this is 2022, nearly 2023, but I’ve always been a bit behind. I’ll try and explain why I think it’s pretty much perfect. I had to check Betty wasn’t real. This wasn’t autobiography. Listen to the first line. It’s an encapsulation of the whole book. ‘A girl comes of age against the knife.’ A coming-of-age story, but we all know they are ten a penny. Who...

It’s the time of year when Top 10 lists tend to get published, so let’s start with a rundown of our best selling publications since our inauguration in 2018: 10 th : ‘My Brain In All Its Perfidious Beauty’, a compilation of entries from the 2020 Poetry Olympics competition which was won by Mark (Kilb50) Kilburn. 9 th : ‘Ghost And Found’ by Eleanor May Blackburn, who is a talented actress as well as poet. 8 th : ‘According To The Dandelions’ by...

Spoiler, I only watched about a half-hour of this. That old joke, it felt longer. Kate Winslet is an international star and has been a well-known face since she was in Titanic , 27 years ago, with that other guy (I wonder what happened to him?) Leonardo DiCaprio has refused to age. Seventeen-year-old Freya, played by Mia Threapleton, is Kate Winslet’s real daughter. In my day, your da got you a job in the shipyards. Kate got her daughter a...