Wrong Jungle (True Story)
Share It had been a long night in Brooklyn, New York. I was out having some late-night drinks with a few friends at a bar that was much farther away from my neighborhood than I usually care to venture. But it was Friday, and I was content to be anywhere outside of my apartment with...
The Camel Coat Story
Share Ever since the Autumn, I’ve been seeing this man. It started on a really cold morning at 5.55am. He was waiting for the same tube as I; he got off at the same stop, changed tubes, and then got off again at the same stop as me. I would always see him every time I...
Urban short story call by The Flaneur
Share Yes the rumours are true! The Flaneur is heading into the exciting realm of ebook publishing. We are looking for short stories under the theme Urban Shorts. This can be interpreted in any way that you wish. The deadline is the end of May. We are looking for stories of all lengths up to around...
An Assignment & Monsoon Rain
Share How can I, who have seen so many summers, sunsets and sunrises, laughter and tears pick one memory from my kaleidoscopic life to write about? I pick one and the kaleidoscope turns bringing together different shards of glass, creating a new memory altogether, not the one I first sat down to write about. But...
Re-reading: Brideshead Revisited – Revisited
Share I’ve noticed that the topic of re-reading has been trending in various literary publications recently; from those who prefer to stick with what they know and love rather than wade into the ever-thorny wilds of new novels, to writers who re-read the work of idols to keep them on their toes and to improve...
Diary of a Novelist – Editing
Share “Writing is re-writing” – this is the mantra of all creative writing teachers and workshop leaders. The theory is that lots of people can write a story, but only a select few can hone it until it becomes a wonderful story. Or maybe the theory is more like – it’s OK if your first...
How often do you see familiars?
Share It was 2012 when the morality of the world dissolved. It was time to change history. Are we the same people we were a few years ago? Our cells have changed, our memory has gaps, our character has transformed. But there is a chain of event. The only way to connect these chain of...
Call for Urban short stories for Flaneur ebook
Share Yes the rumours are true! The Flaneur is heading into the exciting realm of ebook publishing. We are looking for short stories under the theme Urban Shorts. This can be interpreted in any way that you wish. The deadline is the end of May. We are looking for stories of all lengths up to...
Nashville Never Was II (A Prose About Lost Religion)
Share It was a feeling you usually draw lines to when considering “the last time I felt something before I realize where I am.” I never quite realized where I was and that could have possibly been my snowy, saving grace. The ideal was not to be and I fathom that the trajectory I...
wren child
Share i remember once when i was very little my mum told me a story about a house with a weather-vane. what’s a weather-vane i asked her and she said it went on top of your house to show you which way the wind blew. what’s wind i asked her but she just said wind...
The Possible Zoo
Share On the day that the first human zoo opens, there will possibly be a long line of people waiting to get in. There will possibly be a long line for two reasons: one, after all the animals are gone, people will be bored enough to pay money to stare at anything, and, two, the...
“Celebrity”
Share He was a strange little man, always skulking in dark corners. I say little but no so much in size. Rather it was his stoop, his shuffle that gave the impression he had been given a body a few sizes too large and he was hunched in compensation. He was in films, good...
Down and out (as well as very poor and unemployed) in Edinburgh
Share “I have an arts degree, I’m trained for nothing!”-Friedrich Nietzsche, probably. I could describe to you the convoluted series of half-thought out decisions that ultimately led to my unemployment but they are incredibly tedious and more importantly make me sound like a completely ridiculous human being which is a first impression that...
Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Share I first read this book for a critical approaches class on my English degree course… It took me my bus ride to uni to finish it (approx. 45mins); a very short book but very captivating none the less. I recently re-read it, thinking that this tiny piece of Victorian Literature would be perfect for discussion on...
Breadsticks
Share It was besides the breadsticks. They were slowly hardening and so was I. They were growing stale, so was I. Before long they would be overwhelmed by oxygen and decompose, as will I. But, for now, they were hardening. We were hardening. We were less appetising, but stronger in defeat. The breadsticks and...
The Poor Little Squirrel
Share That poor little squirrel, how did it get here amongst all this noise metal? Wandering lost and terrified through a land of looming monuments. It’s black eyes longing and big bushy tale fluffing around like a mad womble. It probably took the bus the little fare dodger. Squirrels can’t get oyster cards so it...
Petra – a short story
Share It was too late for prayers, the priests were brooding at his approach, it would not do for a royal to be so lacking towards the gods. Especially one so close to fall, His long robes swayed about his hurried stride, his limbs were old but he could still hold himself high, the few...
The Polar Chief
Share “Well isn’t that the saddest story you ever saw?” Ern said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, making his swallow tattoo glisten in the icy sun. And in truth it was. We’d been gone six weeks now, and we hadn’t seen a single soul for two of them other than ourselves....
Salt and Shingle
Share Whenever I think of the place, it’s a grey autumn day in November. Stirrings of Christmas, mist in the air, chill clinging to clothing, those little drops of moisture that would bead my fleece with dew. Old women weighed by plastic bags full of God-knows-what shuffling down the beleaguered high street. The town, back...
The Camper Van and the Criminal Justice Bill
Share After the divorce, the nineties began. My father, guilt ridden, took it upon himself to make amends and began taking my younger brother and me on a series of trips around the British Isles. We would go to places of natural beauty, which he hoped would instil in us some of his love...
Stud Marsh
Share It’s been a long time. The bird freewheels through the air, soars above the reed-beds, dives into the marsh hunting frogs, smaller birds, water voles. The wetlands that form an isolated NNR, just outside the tiny village of Stodmarsh. Picturesque rural England pushed to the point of absurdity. It can’t be real, merely an...
Stained Desire
Share a story by: Eugenie Huibonhoa Years and years came as obstacles in the wind. I could imagine myself that night. Overwhelmed by hunger, so desperate enough that I would knock on the most sacred door in the country. Desperate. But so were they. They took me in- a fragile silhouette carving itself in the...
Coming Down
Share A dirty street in South London. Smoke-breath gusts in freezing air. The promise of snow. A huddle of patch-jacket smokers shuddering and inhaling outside the pub. A few piercings, studs, heads newly scalped, boots, army coats. Some tattoos visible. A solitary dyed Mohawk. An elderly West Indian woman shuffled past. Scowled. The rumble of...
Visionary Landscapes
Share “The hills in our minds cannot be measured in miles” - Leatherface, ‘Shipyards’ - “And tomorrow? Tomorrow’s been cancelled due to lack of interest.” - ‘The Last of England’ Andrew Kotting’s 1996 psycho-geographic tour of Britain, ‘Gallivant’, played on the smeared TV set. Little Eden and Big Granny accompany him around the...
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