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I’m pleased the critique was useful, Jill.

I forgot to link names, and as we haven’t heard from @squidge here’s a direct contact.

Well done Jill – you came so close to winning on YWP that it is only justice you come first here.

And thank you Libby for setting a theme which sent me back to all of these small stones and properly gather them in one place (now up to #94

All these entries are wonderful! Goodness, it has been hard to choose a winner. I love the way they all capture the detail of immediate surroundings at the same time as linking to a wider world, and how each one answers the competition’s brief in such interesting ways. All these pieces show acute sensibilities and curiosity, and I really enjoyed…[Read more]

A circuitous route – the same-old, same-old – but not so taken for granted as once it was.

Hot grey asphalt, its dull top layer peeled back by sun and tyres, glistening wet and black under, suggestive of a just-laid stickiness.

Pavements littered with the faded shadows of chalked rainbow messages to un-caped crusaders or old-fashioned hopscotch…[Read more]

Ten days left for anyone thinking about entering the May monthly Den competition 🙂

Not entirely incidentally, there’s a certain resonance for me in all this. Caerleon was where my mother lived for nearly four decades, and so I have a passing, though not intimate, familiarity with the area Arthur Machen loved so much – though I have no doubt that he would be appalled if he could see it today, with the M4 passing within a couple o…[Read more]

Excellent blog, Richard. I fear my “to be read” list has acquired some new items.

Fascinating, as ever, Richard.