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Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 16 Jun 2023

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 16 Jun 2023 The variety of work on ABC Tales never ceases to amaze and delight me, and sometimes that variety can be seen in the work of individual writers. A brilliant example of that is marandina, who has given us not only his engrossing Song to the Siren SF story, but also the beautiful and tender tale that is our Story of the Week, 'A Cat, A Leaf and Fresh Fish'. In this you will find love, loneliness and a mutual...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 16 Jun 2023

The variety of work on ABC Tales never ceases to amaze and delight me, and sometimes that variety can be seen in the work of individual writers. A brilliant example of that is marandina, who has given us not only his engrossing Song to the Siren SF story, but also the beautiful and tender tale that is our Story of the Week, 'A Cat, A Leaf and Fresh Fish'. In this you will find love, loneliness and a mutual need felt and met: A Cat, A Leaf and...

Alan Warner (2023) Nothing Left to Fear From Hell.

Posted by celticman on Wed, 14 Jun 2023

Alan Warner’s debut novel Morven Caller was adapted and made into a film. He’s one of Scotland’s most successful writers. Nothing Left to Fear From Hell is a step away from the usual write-what-you-know school. A short novella. Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight through the Highlands. Most readers know about his escape to France. So we know the ending. We think we know the plot. Why bother? Warner addresses these issues in Afterward . This could and...

Iain Kelly (2022) The Barra Boy.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 10 Jun 2023

The Barra Boy is a whodunnit split into three parts. Beginning (Part One: Ewan Fraser). Middle, (Part Two: The Barra Boy of the title). End (Part Three: Laura Robertson). What happened in Barra is split into two time frames. Ewan Fraser, a successful London solicitor, thinks he saw Billy Matheson on the other side of the window on the crowded Tube station in 2022. But Ewan is in his fifties. Yet Billy seemed to be the same eleven or twelve-year-...

my brother

Posted by Tom Brown on Sat, 10 Jun 2023

my brother My brother is much better he wtll make it. Praise God.

Neal Ascherson (2014 [2002]) Stone Voices. The Search for Scotland.

Posted by celticman on Fri, 09 Jun 2023

Everything has a past, even the future. Let Scotland be Scotland it the cry here, but what type of Scotland and who’s Scotland are we talking about? He takes a page out of Hugh MacDiarmid’s On a Raised Beach : ‘…We are so easily baffled by appearances And do not realise that those stones are at one with the stars. It makes no difference to them whether they are high or low, Mountain peak or ocean floor, palace or pigsty. There are plenty of...

Jacques

Posted by Tom Brown on Wed, 07 Jun 2023

Looks like I'm all on my own again. Wish my brother would come home.

Story and Poem of the Month

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Sun, 04 Jun 2023

Our Story and Poem of the Month for May has very kindly been chosen by Di_Hard: All the gifted writers who posted their wonderful work this month have made choosing only one Story and Poem very difficult, but a great time reading! I would like to recommend all of Mark Burrow's intensely moving Breakdowns, in May particularly : https://www.abctales.com/story/mark-burrow/breakdowns-7-part-i And a writer new to ABCTales, Aronovitz has started...

Great Scottish Writers, George Mackay Brown (2019 [1987]) The Golden Bird. Two Orkney Stories.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 03 Jun 2023

George Mackay Brown writes about what he knows. An Orkney life. His characters are crofters, grounded in the shallow soil and windblown sea, their surnames a mark of where they bide. One bleeds into the other in a communal life in which Mackay Brown is poetically versed. The opening lines of The Golden Bird show this by documenting an island feud. ‘They had not spoken to each other, the crofts of Gorse and Feaquoy, for three generations. And...

Story & Poem of the Week, & Inspiration Point 2nd June 2023

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 02 Jun 2023

Chosen this week by Ewan . Hello all, another bank holiday week, but that hasn't stopped you gifted writers one bit. Naturally, that makes it all a bit difficult, and in the end whatever someone picks, it's all as subjective as subjective can be. Anyway, Poem of the Week is onemorething's 'Mother Dies' and very nice to see something from one of our best poets again. Honourable mentions go to Simon Barget's Elk and Marandina's Ranthambore , which...

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