Insertponceyfrenchnamehere's blog

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 27 Oct 2017 Autumn is off to a crackling start on ABCtales. Dark tales with a whiff of sulphur tumble towards the dark side of the year. Celticman manges to keep humour in the darkness with his story all cat owners will recognise, who knows what they will drag in next: https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/wmd#comment-692656 Autumn is also the season of reflection and there have been a number of poems that lift...

Posted by Ewan on Sun, 22 Oct 2017 Not Writing: Read, that’s all. The more you read the better your writing will be. Read a (very) few books generally acknowledged to be bad writing. Work out why people say this about them. Read the books your parents and grandparents had to read at school and books by their writers’ contemporaries. (You may be offended, that’s fine. Learn to read with detachment, it’s a good skill to have). Make notes about...

Some great pieces on the site this week. Our Story of the Week is a most extraordinary two-parter by LilleDante. It's not an easy read, but you definitely won't regret the effort. Our Poem of the Week is a lilting little beauty from PoetonaHill. Everyone who's read it so far wants to see it set to music. Who knows? Perhaps if he gets more requests he'll have a go! Big congratulations to both: https://www.abctales.com/story/lille-dante/black-book...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 13 Oct 2017 Two very different pieces for this week's picks. Poem of the Week is PoetonaHill's 'In Cardiff Jail'. Undoubtedly bleak, it's brilliantly written and makes the reader go on to think about all sorts of things other than the original subject: https://www.abctales.com/story/poetonahill/cardiff-jail Story of the Week is 'The St Trinian's Problem', by The Other Terrence Oblong. Those already acquainted with...

Poetry Monthly – October Hello all and hope your transition between summer and autumn is a peaceful one. Last month’s theme was Back and it produced some marvellous writing. Here are three to go back to (I’ll avoid saying, see what I did there, as that would be awful): https://www.abctales.com/story/parson-thru/golden-hour https://www.abctales.com/story/pencilflake/back https://www.abctales.com/story/ewan/back-catalogue So, on to October – I...

We've been inundated with masses of really high quality writing this week (especially poetry) which has made for a difficult but very enjoyable search for the best of the best. Story of the Week is Noo's spectacular 'Vampire', and Poem of the Week is Hudsonmoon's brilliant "Shots fired''. Congratulations to both: https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/vampire https://www.abctales.com/story/hudsonmoon/shots-fired Here's this week's Inspiration Point...

Picks for the month of September very kindly chosen by airyfairy: We say this every month, but ABC Tales is genuinely on a roll at the moment, with wonderful work from familiar and new faces. Choosing this month's Picks has been a really enjoyable struggle, and a privilege. The choices for story and poem have very similar themes, but I make no apology for that. They were both just stunning pieces of work. Please do read all the mentions, if you...

Posted by airyfairy on Fri, 29 Sep 2017 Another amazing week on ABC Tales, with some brilliant pieces. Our Story of the Week is jolono's just about perfect 'Swimming In The Rain'. A wonderful evocation of time and place, with a story that will catch your heartstrings: https://www.abctales.com/story/jolono/swimming-rain Poem of the Week goes to Philip Sidney's 'DIY', another just about perfect piece. The mundane experience of redecorating...

Accidentallyexisting is on the radio today as part of the celebrations for National Poetry Day! Here's a link for UK people (I'm not sure if it'll work for others elsewhere - but give it a go anyway!) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05f6njp She'll be reading during the breakfast show (between 7 and 10am) but you should also be able to listen again if you don't catch her live.

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 01 Sep 2017 Poetry Monthly – September Hello and thanks for the summery, whimsical contributions to August’s Poetry Monthly, Blue Sky Tree High! There were some beauts and here are some to re-read: https://www.abctales.com/story/ed-crane/un-dia-en-las-palmas https://www.abctales.com/story/hedgehog1/dandelion https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/grande-dame Summer’s not quite over, but September...