insertponceyfrenchnamehere's blog

Our Story and Poem of the Month for December, very kindly chosen by rjnewlyn: Picks of the month for December are always a little hard to sell, because Christmas has passed and I don’t suppose many of us are in the mood to re-visit it as we brace ourselves for January weather and the year ahead. But do please have one final backward look, because there really were some excellent contributions last month with resonances lingering well beyond the...

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 04 Jan 2019 So it's 2019! We made it out of 2018 and we're living in the future. A couple of spaced-out pieces are our picks of the week. Poem of the Week has Ewan musing on the odd fact that there's a robot trundling along on the dark-side of the moon - we're great on technology but not so much on the fundamentals of life. Outside gives us lots to think about. https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/outside It's no...

Time to dust down the underwhelming decorations, hope the lights don't fuse the electrics and wish all ABCTalers a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Thank you so much for the wonderful poetry and prose you've shared with us, and for the endless encouragement and generosity you've offered to your fellow writers. The biggest thank you goes to our wonderful team of editors who give their time freely to keep things running and to John our...

Posted by jolono on Mon, 17 Dec 2018 My new book is now available on Amazon. It's a collection of 25 short stories. Some have been on here and some haven't. Some I've brought back to life and given them a bit of a twist. I was always worried of losing them somewhere, I recently moved house and couldn't find my external hardrive( where I keep all my writing), for weeks. Once I found it I thought, why don't I publish them and then they'll always...

Posted by Ewan on Sat, 08 Dec 2018 "The most difficult thing for me to remember is that a poem is made of words and not of the expanding heart, the overflowing soul, or the sensitive observer. A poem is made of words." W S Graham Last Night I Met John Adcock, is Ewan's first collection of poetry to be published and features a number of the excellent poems he has shared on ABCtales. The poems move from the relative drudgery and small thrills of...

Review by Noo: There is a fragility and beauty running right through Scharlie Meeuws’ collection of poetry,Outbranching. The collection is split into four sections, moving from memories and dreams, through betrayal and darkness, to nature, wisdom and finally, healing. As you read the poems in each section, you make this same journey and are both touched and transformed by the words in each poem. Scharlie has her own take on the world, but there...

Our picks for the month of November have been chosen by rjnewlyn: November’s an odd month – a bit past proper autumn, not quite proper winter. Back in the day it used to tie with February as my least favourite time of year, but I’ve come to view it with more affection of late (I was going to say ‘warmed to it’ but that wouldn’t be quite right). Perhaps it’s the Tom Waits song (of the same name) that did the trick. There were certainly some good...

Poetry Monthly – December Hello all, Hope everything is good where you are and that the short days and long evenings are giving you lots of chances to write! Poetry Monthly in November asked you to have a go at writing haikus and tankas. Here are some beauties to have another read of: https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/3-wintry-haiku https://www.abctales.com/story/alice-hamilton/park https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/3-...

Our Story and Poem for the month of October have been chosen by Philip Sidney: October is that strange month of transition. It sits on the border of life and death. A time for contemplation and a time to be unsettled. So many pieces across the month have played with these ideas but I have pulled out two that wrong-footed me with their strange yet recognisable ideas. Poem of the month is Noo’s meditation on death and its borders. I found it...