Mary dangles, letting seawater leap over her boots. She’d happily hang here forever, where the ocean and the stars touch. A tangle of fishing net and kelp flops onto her foot and carries on falling, dragging her leg downwards. Tutting, she wriggles, but the net’s stuck fast, and in the end she has to use […]
Ms. Ann Foster, journalist and Africa’s imminent saviour, stands outside the hotel, sweltering in the hot sun. If history books are to say anything about her–and they definitely will when she succeeds–it will be that she, a brave soul, left the comfort of sweet Australia and its ravishing air for Africa’s toiling heat, moved by […]
A few months ago, we received a little story called “How to Win a Pulitzer.” It percolated its way to the top of the slush pile and landed in our monthly winnowing discussion. As the term implies, winnowed stories are the choicest kernels of wheat left behind after the less-desirable chaff has been blown away. […]
There is only one magic: the ritual of possession. Did my mother teach me this? Did it spring from insecurity and need? I just knew, though only four years old. I started small, with my neighbour’s cow. The beast blinked at me as I stumbled round it through dew-spangled grass. Once round, twice, three times […]
September 2019 marks the twentieth anniversary of Jay’s decision to become a writer. His gift to you all this celebratory year is DO IT – Twelve hard lessons on learning by failing, succeeding by accident, never giving up and saying FXXK WRITING all at the same time. You’re welcome! * * * What makes you […]
The day after Kieran left, his favorite mug left, too. Rose had brought it home from the thrift store four years ago, but over time it had shifted loyalties, become Kieran’s. She watched it float down from the cupboard and rattle over to the open window, helpless to stop it. She’d already tried with Kieran, […]
During the 1950s and 1960s, television producers gave us a string of speculative programming. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and others, brought us stories that were often mysterious, sometimes whimsical, always odd. Remember Rod Serling, with his unibrow and a voice that fell somewhere between Maxwell Smart and James Earl Jones? […]