The Double by Alisha Mughal

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  Marie watched herself in the mirror, running the fine-toothed comb down through her long black hair. Keeping her movements slight and to a minimum, she watched her hands, one with its light grip on the comb and the other open flat and hovering behind each tuft the comb ran through, move in a way that reminded her of the stiff, statuesque movements of a doll’s unarticulated limbs. With her head tilted to the side, her hair cascading down over her left shoulder, she admired her bared neck, her right sternocleidomastoid muscle taut. Her reflection in the mirror became her self in front of others, and she thought about how beautiful her neck would look in that soft light that Read More

Body Work by Neil Leadbeater

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  The building, noted for its long, low roof and floor-to-ceiling windows, lay at the far end of the school grounds on the north side of town. There was nothing extraordinary about it once you walked inside. It was just a large empty space. There was none of the fancy paraphernalia that you see in gyms today. We went to it once a week between French and Maths. The instructor was an ex-Army Sergeant Major, the sort whose talk was all shout; whose face showed no emotion. We were fresh out of the packet, green as grass; boys without names trained to obey his loud commands without any hint of complaint. Our world was circumscribed, purposeful, exact. We were exercising Read More

How to Break Through Writer’s Block by Alex Voakes

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Writer’s Block. It sounds almost reassuring, doesn’t it? You may not be actually producing anything, you may be knotted up and despairing, or guilty and restless and convinced of your own worthlessness as both a creative and a human being, but at least a) there’s a name for it and b) that name includes the word ‘writer’. It could be caused by all sorts of reasons – writing is, if not exactly hard labour, then definitely time-consuming and difficult, and it could be that the writer is too worried about money, or is wrestling with a bout of TB, or has to look after six children under five, or is dealing with PTSD from a recent event, or any one Read More

The Letter by Kate Whitehead

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The steps to the house were worn down with the years of trampling feet but still grand like the smooth white pillars in front of the conservatory. I was juvenile and an aspiring author so pounced on any new adventure as a catalyst to the beginning of something. That was all I owned; a lot of openings which lay around for a while then became crumpled balls before disappearing under the detritus of my everyday life. This unexpected excursion was a break from my daily routine which revolved around looking for two elusive things simultaneously: work and long term accommodation. It was beginning to seem that neither of them would ever be available to me which left me in a Read More

Shadows on the Concrete by Veronica Lavia

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They walk into the darkness, shadows on the concrete. I see shapes melt into the pavement. They appear and disappear, gray figures cast on a grayer world. They have no bodies. Forgotten, they walk amidst deserted cities, and only those who still have eyes to look and observe assist to these invisible interactions of bodiless shapes. They don’t see me, when I see them. I linger at the edge of the road, terrified that the ground is going to melt and drag me in the word of lost shadows. It happens at time, there’s so few of us left at the edges of the crumbling reality. The borderland we call it, the borderland of those who haven’t disappeared yet. It’s Read More

Six things I learned writing over 75 non fiction books

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Publishing is one of those industries that has always been on the brink of collapse. The latest broadside is from (wouldn’t you know it) the Internet and the proliferation of ebooks. You can say what you like about Fifty Shades and whether it benefits humanity to just allow people to publish whatever they want, but it’s hard to think of a legal means of stopping them. Anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection can now get their work out there and call themselves an author. As a result, there is a vast, swelling bubo of cheap ebooks, most with very little quality control, market for the work or adequate punctuation. I am responsible for nearly a hundred of them. Read More

Brodie by Leela Soma

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My journey began in Chennai 2015. What is a young lad from Glasgow doing in Chennai, India? You might well ask! It started on that night in November 2013 strange dream of me drowning or nearly drowning holding on to someone or something very precious to me. That was strange. I am a very good swimmer, a ‘wee fish in water’ as my grandma used to say. I had read late into the night tossing and turning. I was so excited about my success in getting a placement in an Indian music college! The Royal Conservatoire course had a three month placement for our class in the final year of my music course. I wanted to experience a completely new Read More

A Merry Christmas Mr Dickens by Rebecca Lewis

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  Gad’s Hill, Christmas Eve, 1869   It is mid-afternoon and the light, meagre at best, is fading fast from the day. Charles is restless at his desk.  The writing is progressing slowly, much more slowly than he should like. He cannot settle – the dreadful pain that has tormented him for months on end will not allow it. To remedy this he drinks a brandy, makes excuses to his family, much occupied with the decorating of the Christmas tree, and strolls down the hill towards the town. He strides as best he can – his left foot dragging slightly – across the Rochester Bridge, flourishing his cane before him and greeting the occasional well-wisher with a nod and smile. Read More

Watching every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation for the first time Part Three by C T Thorbens

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Part Three of mocking a thirty-year-old scifi series for being hokey and rubbish. In this installment, we learn about Data’s backstory, Riker’s sexual fantasies (SPOILER ALERT: they involve trombones) and how to fix the ozone layer. 12. Datalore: Data, we learn, was found 26 years ago, the sole survivor of some catastrophic tragedy, like a waxen-skinned Harry Potter. The Enterprise returns to his planet and finds a SECOND Data – called Lore – who seems really nice and eager to be friends with everyone. OR IS HE? This episode is a tricky one — bits of it are good, and yet the whole is so irretrievably stupid. On the plus side, Data does a cracking performance as Evil Twin Lore, Read More

The Sparrows of the National Museum by Ethan Leong

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God set you down on a tranquil lawn Your chestnut feathers mottled with specks of white and black I clasped her hand softly, sitting by concrete-paved steps I feared the sound of our thighs, pressed against the hewn stone Would somehow remind you of who you are ANXIETY! Whatarethosetwogiantssittingtherewatchingmefor PANIC! WillIbecagedwillIbeharmedwhatiftheycrushedmeintheirclumsyarms I’m glad you hopped, when you could have flown I’m glad you chirped, although you cannot groan Sparrow is my brother, the one I refuse to acknowledge at family gatherings Sparrow is my brother, the one I speak cursory sentences to Anxiety fathered us, Fear beget us I am sorry brother, I cannot acknowledge you I cannot recognise my instinct to fly I have to fight with gritted teeth, Read More