Barry Walsh

Earth and smoke and iron

It were an odd one and no mistake. She were odd. Educated; not from round here. ‘Otherworldly’ some might say.
She lugged it in, wrapped up in brown paper, tied with string. Knots sealed with blobs of scarlet wax.
‘You’ll ‘after tell me what’s in it, lass –‘
‘A coat. An army one. That’s what’s the smell –‘
I sniffed. A…[Read more]

@Stevie – definitely sounds worth a shot

@alanr – no idea but thought it might warrant further exploration (and we may even have some US based people here anyway)

Great writing Seagreen. I thought it was a winner as soon as I read it. Super competition Daeds and what a great effort with all the feedback!

I’m in Loughborough – I wouldn’t call it quaint or pretty…like any town, there are bits like that, but not in the town centre. I suppose it depends on where most of the action happens…

Not sure where you’re based, Philippa, but happy to show you round if you want to see it!

Nice prompt… Looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this one.

Thanks, Daeds, a valid point and I appreciate the input.

Thanks John. Mostly I meant that you make us feel what it was like so well, the few places where you just tell us something directly stood out – e.g. ‘but the loss of his attendance bonus would have been intolerable’ – I would have preferred a sense of what intolerable meant to them. But it’s a seriously picky point for such a short word count…[Read more]

Well done Seagreen, fully deserved.
Thanks, Daeds. Yes, I was in SA for the election. What do you mean by “on the nose”?

Absolutely delighted for you Janette -thoroughly deserved of course

Congratulations, Seagreen, on a worthy winning entry.

Well done, Sea 🙂 A very well deserved win. And thanks Daed for getting the ball rolling. Great monthly comp.

Ah, Daeds, you’re too generous. I didn’t expect that, and have, in fact, been checking the Den frequently today to find out what the theme for this month’s comp would be 🙂

I’m delighted, of course, given the calibre of the entries, but hope no-one expects that same level of insight when it comes to October’s judging.

Off to think of something to set…

Well done, Sea! And thanks for setting us off on a monthly comp journey again here in the Den, Daeds.

I just amended the post to tag people, which I’d forgotten to do before. I hope people get notifications of tags when it’s an edited post? Oh well, we’ll find out

Well done Sea – a breath-stopping piece beautifully (dare I say?) conceived.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the first Den of Writers monthly competition. We now have a whole new section of the forum just for the monthly comp, so all future versions will be held there. Here’s the link: https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/forum/den-of-writers/monthly-competition/

For those not familiar with the monthly c…[Read more]