News and Features

ABCtales has just published its 100 000 th story — this is a major milestone for us and I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for your continuing support of the site, and for filling it with so much excellent work throughout the years. From its inception in September of 2000 ABCtales has been dedicated to supporting writers and helping them to develop in every way we can. And the stories speak for themselves – we’ve seen dozens of...

Just One of Those Days is a gorgeous new picture book written by ABC’s own Richard Penny and illustrated by the very talented Harmke Wijbenga. Though it’s written for 4-9 year olds, it’ll appeal to any child (or adult) with a love for imaginative images. The book tells the story of a father’s day out with his daughter. Though everything they decide to do seems to lead to one disappointment after another – a pony-ride gets rained out, the other...

I just came across a great article about unusable synonyms and the dark, damp and forgotten portions of the English language. Ever wonder why no one uses 'pulchritude,' 'niggardly,' 'incarnadine,' or 'puissant' anymore? This article has a go at explaining why. Thought it might bring a smile to the face of anyone who's ever grappled with a thesaurus (I can't be the only one of us) : http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/unusable-...

I, Tony Cook, will be stepping down as Editor on October 7th and Luke Neima will be taking over. This is a major step forward for ABC - Luke will be full time and he's committed to taking us onwards and upwards whilst still retaining all of our core values - open to all, free of charge, supportive and community led. I will still retain ownership of the site and will be involved at every step of the business - I just won't be doing all the day to...