27.12.13 Story, Poem and Inspiration Point of the Week

Posted by Luke Neima on Fri, 27 Dec 2013

I hope everyone has passed a Merry Christmas. I've certainly been enjoying the fruits of the holiday season on ABC—in the past few weeks I've read some of the best Christmas writing I've ever come across, and in quantity. More than a few of this week's stories and poems I paused over, and I couldn't help but read a couple out over the fire on Christmas. 

There's just over a week left for submissions to our Winter competition. Entry is only £5 pounds, and I'd really encourage everyone to take some time to write something and enter, especially if you still have a little bit of holiday left. Competitions are always a fun challenge and motivator, and they always do bring out the best in a writer's talents. For more details and how to enter, look here: http://www.abctales.com/blog/luke-neima/abctales-winter-write.

Our story of the week is Denni’s ‘What the…’. This is warm, rich honest autobiography at it's best. Denni has an incredible voice—it draws you in entirely, makes you feel a part of the vicissitudes of life, and you can’t help but feel along with her the grip of powerful emotions and the difficulty of letting go:

http://www.abctales.com/story/denni1/what

Poem of the week goes to Marion Wozere’s ‘So the Story Goes’. This was a hard one to pick, as there were so many incredible Christmas poems on the site this week, but Marion’s included one of the best condensations of the life of Jesus I have ever come across: ‘lively party guest / enigmatic commentator / escapologist / faith healer / jester / guru / agitator’. I had to read it a few times to let it sink in. I found the poem's simple, surprising and confident vision of the man refreshing in a holiday season where he's reproduced a thousand times in a thousand different guises—from midnight masses to holiday giftcards. A very refreshing read:

http://www.abctales.com/story/marionwozere/so-story-goes

We've been having a lot of great responses to the IP over the past few weeks, and today we have a fun idea for collaborative poem-writing suggested by Richard Provencher. Have a look and join in here:

http://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip