Activity

1st October 2025 and results time.  Thank you Libby, Knicks and Athelstone for your beautifully written and atmospheric entries, such a pleasure to read.  All worthy winners which immersed me in the diverse scenarios completely.  It has been hard to choose one winner to take over the baton and set us a challenge for this new month.

Libby, as a wr…[Read more]

The Artist of Wexton

A gust of icy wind blew across the beach, and I turned to one side and pulled my coat tighter. Doing so, I realised that something was wrong, but I wasn’t quite sure what. An elderly woman stood about fifty yards to the west looking out to sea. There was something almost mournful about her, and, against my usual inclination I…[Read more]

Fabulous indeed – thanks for the link, Libby. I’ve much enjoyed Emma’s two previous novels, so this will be a cert.

(Untitled, 394 words)

The book was finished, the story told. But more importantly, the truth laid bare. Every pocket dimension of past trauma exorcised. Every chapter of his life stamped adult, checked as complete. Every fragment of what it meant to be human sorted and struck through.

Now was a new time. A beginning time. Time to rejoin the…[Read more]

This month I’ve gone for an essay, or at any rate not a story.

338 words

Outside my window there’s the small garden and then a field, where a tractor drags a harrow. The harrow’s arms are open and horizontal. Metal discs hang below them, making contact with the ground, and I hear the discs rattling along the soil and bouncing over flints. The…[Read more]

Hello fellow writers.  Gentle reminder of ‘New Beginnings’ challenge for September 2025!  Now over half of month has passed and no entries.  I do so look forward to reading your excellent writing…  If you wish, the challenge could just be ‘Beginning’ or ‘The Beginning of…’     Jill x

Whoops that should of course be 2025 – slip of the typing finger!

Goodness!  When I was eventually allowed to log in! I came here fully expecting Janette’s entry to be declared the winner and so was surprised that I have been declared.  Thank you Sandra.  Yes, our paths in life  do seem to have some parallels…    Congratulations to Janette too, as I loved the way she told her story and the title!

Now to work…[Read more]

Only two entries, as Athelstone rightly points out, but both were a joy insofar as they echoed some of my experiences.  Like Jill, Steve and I were but 16 and eighteen – me young enough to be banned from going on the back of his motorbike, but after four years of ‘going steady’, when  Steve asked my Dad for,  permission  to marry me his response…[Read more]

Only two entries, as Athelstone rightly points out, but both were a joy insofar as they echoed some of my experiences.  Like Jill, Steve and I were but sixteen and eighteen – me young enough to be banned from going on the back of his motorbike, but after four years of ‘going steady’, when  Steve asked my Dad for,  permission  to marry me his respo…[Read more]

Aargh – busy weekend filled with grandchildren visits and attempts to add names to a 1905 photo of a Christmas celebration family history question. I’ll get to reading and deciding ASAP.

Here I am, racked with guilt. I did sit down a couple of times to write an entry, but it just wouldn’t come. I had an idea yesterday that I liked, and it may end up as a scene in the WIP, but I had so much going on I couldn’t manage it. Apologies, it’s a fascinating idea and I should have done something. However, you have two very good entries to…[Read more]