Blogs

Doris Lessing is one of those authors I kept meaning to read. Her father was an officer wounded in the Great War and her mother the nurse that nursed him, rather a romantic ideal, but reality often knocks spots off those kinds of notions. Her great love was killed before she could marry him and he’d lost a leg, well, they had each other. Then they’d a loan from the land bank and a failing farm in Southern Rhodesia. She was upwardly mobile,...

Drink addiction does the working class no good. As true now as in the 19th Century when Zola wrote his tragi-comic epic, the title has sometimes been translated as The Pub or Dram Shop. Posh folks can also sometimes suffer from liver failure and permanent damage to the brain and motor system however they may be more able to get up in the afternoon without getting sacked. At the start of the story Gervaise and Coupeau are in love and have their...

Happy Easter, all. I hope you’ve been enjoying the sun and a little extra time to your own devices. I’ve taken a few kilos of writing up into the Cumbrian hills with me, and have been alternating between editing other people’s work and trying to get my own notes and jottings and half-formed scenes into some kind of order. It’s a good weekend for resurrections. Michelangelo's take on an age-old theme If you haven’t heard the news, we’ve just made...

I sporadically write a blog. It's often on writing topics, or my writing in general. This time I got a bit on the deep side. If you want to see past posts, you’ll find me at www.lisahinsley.weebly.com

I’m glad to make a call for entries to ABCtales’ latest prose and poetry competition, 100 Years On . 2014 marks the centennial of the First World War — and ABCtales will mark that occasion by inviting writers to incorporate the event into their work. There’s no set way that the war should be treated - pieces do not even need to be directly related to the war in any way - but we do ask that there is at least some mention made, however...

27 April 2014 Definition of PAP 1 chiefly dialect : nipple , teat 8am. I doubt that you've taken much notice of 2 Popes going to Rome one of them Pope von Ribbentrop, to anoint Pope John as the patron saint of little boys nipples: my first thought was, 'where's a sniper when you need one?' Jeez, 2 popes in one hit, they'd probably make him a, um, a saint! OK, just for the sake of feminism it could be a hit woman. If I'm a womaniser and I am,...

Thatcher’s strategy for dealing with the IRA was shaped by Airy Neave, former British Army officer, barrister and politician. It was a simple solution best summed up in the words of Rev. Ian Paisley: No Surrender to the IRA. Mrs Thatcher’s colleagues suggested she thought of it in terms of Hitler’s march into the Sudentan and as a staunch Unionist she could not allow this. The analogy between Thatcher and Hitler is perhaps a bit too farfetched,...

The title comes from a fragment near the end of the book and relates to swimming and life. Joy, the narrator, is a twenty-seven year old schoolteacher. She teaches drama, but in life she keeps fluffing her lines. She’s not quite sure about anything and, in this her first book, the experienced reader looks for clues to Galloway’s identity. Joy has got an older sister (Mhari) she’s terrified of. So does Galloway. Check. Her mother walked into the...

Not town, not open country, not seaside. Edgelands,we know them, we live them. Edgelands are the empty factories along the canal, sprouting with old mattresses, porn and a makeshift burnt out fire, the brief hovel of those on the road. They are the quiet walk along the canal, the trade route now a fishing, birding haunt. Edgelands are forgotten industry, retail parks at night, sites by the side of the lane for travellers, human and feral. Alive...

This week I’m glad to announce a new feature on ABCtales – which is the option to make pieces accessible only to other logged-in members of ABCtales. We’ve had a lot of discussions about what counts as digital publishing in the past, and how that works with ABC. Many users have asked me how they could avoid getting notes saying there work was already published on ABC when submission time rolls around. Having a piece available to ABC members only...