tcook's blog

We do survive on your donations - they make a huge difference to keeping ABCtales free to one and all. If you possibly can afford to do so and you use the site on a regular basis then please do give. The 'donate to ABC' button are at the bottom of every page. It's very easy to do! Pic credit: http://tinyurl.com/jhqw9hd

A really great story and poem for you this week - and an Inspiration Point that could have you scratching your head! Story of the Week is this belter from the ever wonderful Vera Clark. She captures the time and place of the Holiday Camp and gives us a tale with a wicked twist: http://www.abctales.com/story/veraclark/souvenirs The Poem of the Week is one that really made me think. This is an orginal and really quite profound notion: http://www...

It is with great sadness that we have to announce the passing of long term ABCtales member Lisa Hinsley. She was a wonderful writer and a fine member of our community - giving freely of her time and opinions in order to help hundreds of others. Lisa was a fine writer with a number of published books. Her most famous, Plague, is strongly recommended to you. She fought cancer with bravery and stoicisim for three years. Lisa leaves a husband and...

Our latest ABCtales book to be published by Unbound is the truly excellent 'Ex' by Laurie Avadis, known on here as 'lavadis'. It's the extraordinary tale of a 30 stone policeman who is intent on murdering his young son. It makes you laugh - a lot - and then suddenly take in a sharp breath and realise just what it is that you are laughing at. This is a shocking and thought provoking book that comes from the heart of Laurie's experience as a...

Please please please support our final books on Unbound. If you haven't done so yet, then now is the time to do it! Celticman is lagging behind and badly needs your help. He's done so much for this site and helped so many of you - now is the time to give him something back: http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole And Ewan is so nearly there - just a few more of you and he'll be over the line. Go, give him a boost: http://unbound.co.uk/books/...

I am sorry to report that Luke Neima has left us for the Granta but he goes with my lasting appreciation for a great job done. Luke will still be about to help to promote our Unbound books (so if you haven't signed up yet please do so now!). In his place scratch and insert, aka Peter Hitchen and Claudine Lazar, are taking over as the main Editors in a job sharing arrangement. I am delighted that they feel able to take on the onerous task of...

ABCtaler John Giffard ( http://www.abctales.com/user/john-giffard ) has written one of the poems in this new anthology. Heroes, 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets. Edited by John Jeffries. This book is exactly as described in the title. It contained 100 poems covering various aspects of war. A large number of submissions were made in response to a call for poems for inclusion. A selection panel of 4, each individually rated all those...

A massive thankyou to all of you who have supported our three Unbound authors - they're doing really well but all need more support! There's also Jennifer Pickup's (Jennifer on ABCtales.com) Unforgivable, the follow up to her sensationally good Unbelieveable. Do support her here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/unforgivable Support Celticman's Lily Poole here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole Support lavadis's Ex here: http://unbound.co.uk/books...

A new writing competition to find the “next big thing” in children’s literature has being launched by the National Literacy Trust in partnership with Bloomsbury. The New Children’s Author Prize is set to unearth brilliant new talent in writing for children. Unpublished authors who enter the competition will be in with the chance of winning a publishing contract with Bloomsbury, publisher behind the Harry Potter series. The first prize will also...

The third and final of our authors has now gone up on Unbound as we strive to gain funding for their books. Laurie Avadis has been a great supporter of ABCtales and his novel, 'Ex', was written on the site. It's a splendid tale of a 32 stone policeman who is determined to murder his son! See the video, read and extract and support him if you wish here: http://unbound.co.uk/books/ex Do take a look at our other two authors and support them too if...