John S Alty

Monthly comp:  there’s already three thoroughly inspirational entries this month … I’m heading for the Hull ferry later today, will be back on the 3rd September, hoping to see how others interpret this prompt.

Picture Gap

296 words 

The woman standing at the dining table carries an unsmiling, get-to-work concentration. Her hair is grabbed into an updo clip, and beneath a lit pendant lampshade she shifts paperbacks from the tabletop into a box, tucking away volumes of sky-blue, white and pink. Beach reads.

The woman, or someone, has chosen Scandi…[Read more]

Some years into my writing journey I began making a list of writers who, as I read them, immediately sent me  to my current wip, recognising the breed of magic, of tone,  I needed to add to mine. (no idea where that list has gone) I’m not at all analytical, so fail miserably at the ‘read like a writer’ exercises, but was mildly shocked, on r…[Read more]

Turning of the Wheel

In a yellow rectangle, in the black façade of a house, a woman is laying a table. Not the sort set for the serving of meat, but one that would see her more trussed and seared than any spit hog.

Candles set: North. South. East. West.
Salt cast for purification.

Gaia had fasted for this night of the blood moon, its m…[Read more]

My, you have been doing your research, haven’t you?

I never for one moment thought you were attacking him.  I assumed that you were thinking what I think, that he’s an admirably level-headed bloke with both feet firmly on the ground. No regrets, move on, ‘that was then and this is now,’ to quote one of the songs. I would have said that he comes…[Read more]