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...

What a week for poems and prose. But there always has to be a winner ( or winners) in this case. Story Of The Week goes to The Other Terrence Oblong for THE STOAT PROBLEM. It's clever, witty and with the great style that TOTO has in bucketfulls! I loved it. http://www.abctales.com/story/other-terrence-oblong/stoat-problem As for Poem Of The Week, there was a stand out piece from Philip Sydney. SHALL I BE MOTHER is a triumph of delicate memories...

Last Saturday, when I was in Dalmuir Library, Gregor Fisher was doing a gig at 7pm. It was sold out. Tickets only. But let’s put this into perspective. Dalmuir Library is not the Albert Hall. Sold out means about thirty hard plastic chairs filled by wee woman with blue rinse and bookish leanings. A stocky wee guy with a bit of the blue rinse about him was setting up the microphone, practicing saying one-two, one-two. I didn’t want to tell him...

What a week for poems and prose. But there always has to be a winner ( or winners) in this case. Story Of The Week goes to The Other Terrence Oblong for THE STOAT PROBLEM. It's clever, witty and with the great style that TOTO has in bucketfulls! I loved it. http://www.abctales.com/story/other-terrence-oblong/stoat-problem As for Poem Of The Week, there was a stand out piece from Philip Sydney. SHALL I BE MOTHER is a triumph of delicate memories...

I was at Gordon Abraham’s funeral yesterday. He was born in 1948. I’ll let you do the maths. Gordon was an old guy, but despite having seven kids he never really grew up. He still liked a drink and a carry on. It was good to see so many people there. All age groups. And so many familiar faces. Dalmuir faces. None of us getting any younger. I’m sure Gordon would have got a kick out of the reason I never got allowed into his funeral. The funeral...

Took a walk to clear my writer’s thoughts and found myself lost in them anyway…The crooked, broken sidewalk stretched before me and led me past store fronts and open air restaurants. Sounds of music drifted out and I found myself humming along. Conversations flowed around me from passersby and patrons sitting at outdoor tables...I strung odd words together with birdsongs and car horns to flesh out the scene forming in my mind…My imagination took...

I've just finished the final edits for the launch May 15th with Blue Hour Publishing. Get Lenin was started in 2006 and took 5 years to write, rework, pitch and get published. Tim Roux took it as a Night Publishing titile then closed Night Publishing down to form Taylor Street based in San Francisco. In 2013, I was released, and Get Lenin remained state-side, picked up by Master Koda Select Publishing. With my contract expring, I have left MKSP...

I was vaguely aware of Karl Ove Knausgaard, having read some reviews of his work. So I knew that the life that he lived was the material he used to build the narrative of his life and tell a story of how he became who he is. Some of my favourite reading material comes from Harpie. Thanks for the Vodka 2004, for example, tells the reader through a diary format what happens to her day to day. Her life is a shipwreck and as she goes under she tells...