Lisa Hinsley is a prodigiously talented writer and an inspirational woman. I'm delighted to announce that her piece Child is our story of the week: http://www.abctales.com/story/lisa-h/child Pat G has written a memorable poem packed with spirituality. There are so many ways to interpret this piece. It's a beauty: Muse This week's inspiration point is "Look beneath the surface". The loosest interpretation is encouraged. Good luck! Have a great...

http://www.abctales.com/story/truth42/nice-see-you Near the end of Ropeburns, author and narrator, Ian Probert, bumps into Rob Douglas. If you’re like me you’ll not have a clue who Rob Douglas is. You’d know who Rab Douglas is – the ex-Celtic goalie that kept making a hash of it in the biggest matches of the season, most notably against Rangers. Football always finds a new way to smack you in the mouth, and I’m biased that way. Think Nick Hornby...

It's been a wonderful week for posting on ABCTales and consequently it's been really hard to pick the best of the best - especially prose - but here are my choices: Poem of the Week goes to Michael S R Valentine for Horreur a Paris - a powerful and heartfelt reaction written in the immediate aftermath of recent events. The Story of the Week is Terrence Oblong's Getting Fat, a quite extraordinary piece. It's not his usual style. Do read both and...

This week I’m reading about the attack on Paris. I don’t need to tell you about it. The media is full of front-line news on continual loop. It’s got that feel of 9/11 about it, but closer to home. Last week I was reading Reportage, Cemetery of Lost Souls , photographer Giles Duley on the Greek Island of Lesbos, where many refugees end up on the beach. Some die, as the image of the Syrian boy that went global show. Perhaps it softened Western...

Whilst Elliot’s Prufrock might have measured out his life in coffee spoons it sometimes feels like I’m measuring mine out in story and poem of the week announcements. Thankfully stories and poems are far better and more beautiful things to measure ones temporality by than coffee spoons – especially when they’re as good as this week's winners, so I’m certainly not complaining. The poem of the week belongs to Bee for her brilliant Poetry Monthly...

Day 1 Am here thinking that sometimes Jehovah humbles us to confirm that he is Supreme and the Creator. Am here right now at the verge of losing all things that is important to me and that’s my education. This is really precious to me. Really important. To have that degree will give me the edge.yes it will. I really want this.i really do. I want to be somebody. I want fame and fortune and its like I am losing it all! Just had sex. Condom broke!I...

Hey, DarkPinkGirl here Do you ever start writing a story or poem or any piece of writing and just feel like you have way too many ideas for one person to think about? I often start writing a screenplay or story with a perfectly planned out idea in my head but then it seems the more I continue to write the more ideas come flooding into my head. Most of the time I end up completely forgeting my orginal plot line and attempt to put ALL of my...

The gate's unlocked!!!

It’s in the papers - so it must be true I read the papers on a Sunday, starting at the back with the sports’. It’s called haruspex, a bit like looking from omens that Celtic are getting better by examining a sacrificed animal’s liver, and I wear my green-tinted specs when looking over the evidence. If the portents are good, or sufficiently bad, I’ll read the real news. Two stories caught my interest. I’m prejudiced like everybody else, but not...