John S Alty

Well done, Libby, thoroughly deserved.

So, four very different entries this month. Eenie, meanie, minie, mo.

Seagreen made me laugh, Jill made me smile, Raine worried the hell out of me and Athelstone made me melancholy.Can’t separate you, all excellent.

But I’m going to give this months prize to Raine for all that energy and power.

Well done all of you!

Last day to get your entries in!

Well done, Janette, good luck with the book!

Great story.

Great story telling, Daeds, congratulations.

Another interesting blog, Richard, thank you.

Thank you Raine. Yes it turned out to be a pretty cunning ploy.

Wow, thanks Libby! Well done to the other participants. I’ll think up some devilishly difficult competition for March and post later tomorrow.

New Day

The smoke from cooking fires lay like a grey blanket over Alexandra township and a tangerine sun rose behind it, then burst clear and threw its warming mantle over the land. The windows of the high-rise buildings on the distant Johannesburg skyline glinted like slabs of molten gold. A typical autumn dawn on the highveld but this was not a…[Read more]

There are also examples in art – Paul Gauguin, Picasso and Freud, for example, were not particularly nice folk, it seems.
If a writer’s work doesn’t reflect his obnoxious views, does that make it OK? Or if his views are expressed in a work of fiction and not an educational piece?
Some very good people write fiction that contains extreme views, but…[Read more]

No problem @Libby, it was a flippant remark on my part, not intended to be taken seriously.

I have two pieces nearly done but I don’t now which of them to enter. Maybe I’ll enter both, one under a pseudonym. Would that be cheating?

Well done Libby, excellent. Good job, Jane.

Hi @skylark, good to see you’re back.