Clinton or Trump? Sometime tomorrow we shall know the answer to this nasty, brutish and very long Presidential campaign. My money's on Trump. 'Brexit plus, plus, plus' - the man said it himself. He would not get my vote (and I voted Remain) but we have to look long and hard at where these massive protest votes are coming from. Yeats made a prescient point in his poem The Second Coming, written in 1919 'The best lack all conviction, while the...

Story and Poem of the Month for October, chosen by another of our lovely and generous editors: As always there was an awe-inspiring pool of great posts and talent to draw from. Many congratulations to everyone who has posted in October and made the choice so difficult. For poem of the month, I'm picking Branwell Clinic by Julia (Overthetop1), a very talented contributor to ABCtales, sadly no longer with us. The poem was posted by Julia's mother...

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Two outstanding pieces this week - quite hard to choose as there's been so much good stuff. Congratulations to Rosa Cruz for 'I and The Village' and NBeinn for 'Long Tall Sally'. Do read them both, they're brilliant! https://www.abctales.com/story/rosa-cruz/i-and-village https://www.abctales.com/story/nbeinn/long-tall-sallly Here's the Inspiration Point: https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip Have a lovely weekend!

The leaves are changing outside my window and the air is just that touch of chilling that makes me feel alive. This time of year awakens in me the true writer because it feeds my imagination… I don’t know why the months from October to January have this affect on me…I only know since childhood... they do. It starts in October…Halloween and the lure of costumes and their magical abilities to transform you…the tingling intrigue of mysteries and...

A few thoughts on my 112 years of being an on and off member of ABCtales.

A group of members are forming in order to keep ABCtales going after December 31st - and it's looking good. They are determined to keep the ethos of the site - that it's available to anyone regardless of financial or cultural circumstances, is friendly and supportive and will encourage improvement as much as excellence. I am very hopeful that ABCtales will continue under their guidance for many years to come. More news soon! All the best, Tony...

'The ticker, the curse of the Fitzpatricks.' It's a one-liner inserted by Irvine Welsh within the first 50 pages of Trainspotting. Did Irvine and Lilian whose maiden name was Fitzpatrick ever meet? It would not surprise me; they were the same age, both from Edinburgh housing schemes and both enjoyed a night out. Lilian was not a user of illegal drugs but in her younger days she went drinking and dancing and the two may well have met at a disco...

My ponderings on the concept of the “Fellowship of Suffering” after watching Andy Stanley’s DVD on what to do “In the Meantime” whilst you are waiting for something, or are ‘stuck’ in a situation you can’t change. As God works in His AMAZING ways, I was reading “A Voice in the Wind” by Francine Rivers (a loan from a friend) at the same time as I was watching the Stanley series. The book is a fictional historical recapture of the Biblical times...

A great story and a wonderful poem for you this week. Congrats go to mandylifeboats and seafret: https://www.abctales.com/story/mandylifeboats/meeting-wolf https://www.abctales.com/story/seafret/rooted And an IP that can make you think a bit: https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip