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  • Valkyrie

    2024 Poetry Anthology - Seasons - Week Three

    By Valkyrie

    It's week three of our 2024 poetry anthology - Seasons, and we have six more poems and poem collections to enjoy!  Be sure to leave a comment or review for the poet.  A reminder that I will be on vacation from April 7-22nd with limited availability to be on site, so please direct any technical issues to @Myr @wildone or @Cia    
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Book review

Book Review: The Clothes They Stood Up in by Alan Bennett

The Ransomes, a middle-aged, middle-class couple living in North London, return home to their mansion flat, from a night at the opera, and discover they have been burgled. But this is no ordinary burglary. Every single thing in their home has been taken. They are greeted with only bare floor boards and walls. All the possessions they are left with, in the world, are the clothes they are wearing. In this novella, Alan Bennett strips this middle-class couple of all their belongings and theref
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Book review

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John Henry's Blogs

Allow Me to Digress, Again.... (Thicker Than Water Chapter 2)

I'm currently running into the problem I knew I'd have writing this blog:  Rambling.  I've already taken four swings at this only to delete it after I've caught myself going off topic on many tangents.  Granted, they provided a lot of insight and exposition into the story, but it's just too much and not necessarily needed.  So, allow me to digress, again. This is not the first story I've ever written.  I think that's pretty clear.  I also think everyone knows (or can find out) that this is
John Henry's Blogs

What the Hell I Was Thinking (Thicker That Water Chapter 1)

Titles.  They're the worst.  I'm not good with names or titles.  Often, I'll come up with the a place holder and write a few pages to get a feel for the story before settling on something to call the story.  I'm never satisfied with my titles, either.  When I was a kid, I'd name my stories after song titles, even if the song had nothing to do with what I was writing.  I found it easier than trying to think of something catchy.  Titles should grab your reader's attention, while giving some kind o
blog post

My LinkedIn Profile Was Stolen, a Cautionary Tale

“ERIN SMITH IS A LIAR!!” I went to log onto my LinkedIn profile, to post a link to my latest blog, but I was locked out of it. There was a message saying my account had been locked because of “suspicious activity”. But all I had been posting on it were links to my writing. I checked my emails and found ones from LinkedIn, several of the many emails from them telling me someone had messaged me, someone had viewed my profile, someone had posted another notification, but the recent ones w
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in blog post

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Life and Writing

Moving on.

Life: I start a new job on Monday. I haven’t had a new job in ten years, mostly because I was happy at my old one. Good hours, good money, good people… Yeah, pretty content. Not gonna lie. But then another opportunity came up, and I thought, “Hey, why not?” The new job still has all the things: schedule, pay, autonomy, etc.  You know what’s shocking? All the people -- at the old company -- flabbergasted at my decision. Why would I leave if nothing was wrong? Am I not scared?
John Henry's Blogs

Welcome to My Blog about Thicker Than Water

This is always an awkward situation, never knowing how to start a conversation that may very well be just to yourself that others may end up reading.  To start, I guess, I hate first person narratives.  You can tell a good writer from a bad writer based on how they use this perspective.  A good writer using first person will give some insight into the mind of the lead character, such as suspicions, theories and point of view, which is used to drive the plot.  A bad writer will focus more on the
blog post

London Pride 2023: A Long Wait or Another Broken Promise?

They were dotted throughout the London Pride march. On all different types of banners and placards, some very professionally produced and others homemade but often more pithy. All of them demanding the same thing: BAN CONVERSION THERAPY! Every time I saw one, I would smile, partly to show my support and gratitude to the person carrying the banner, and partly to myself. To see the dangerous threat of conversion therapy so openly denounced by the LGBTQ community was so reassuring. I
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in blog post

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Book review

Book Review: A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

This is a story of modern family life, told through the diaries of three different members of a family. Mo, the mother and child psychologist, who is rapidly approaching fifty and stuck in a rut, and her two teenage children, Dora, who may have finally found a man worthy of her affections, but she has never met him, and Peter, who now wants to be known as “Oscar” after his idol, Oscar Wilde. The mother is the most well-drawn character in this story and she falls into the far too well treade
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Book review

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Life and Writing

Gonna Write Me A Book

Life: Had a conversation with my sister-in-law last week at our 4th of July picnic. It went like this: Cass: I’ve got the most amazing idea for a book. Me: Nice.  Cass: How would I go about getting it published? Me: First step? Cass: Yeah. Me: You have to write it.  Cass: Oh, well…yeah. Cart before the horse, much? Writing: Some thoughts on editing, because this is a supportive and cohesive community and things like peer editing are a happy reality here. W
With Pride

London Pride 2023: We’ve Come a Long Way

It was London Pride last weekend and again we attended it. It has been a tradition in my life ever since I first moved to London. It is “our day” when LGBTQ people can celebrate out and openly on London’s streets. This year again I noticed a trend that I first saw at last year’s London Pride, the teenager attending their first Pride, but they aren’t alone. I saw fourteen, fifteen and sixteen year olds so obviously on their first Pride and accompanied by their mothers. The mother was dressed
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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Life and Writing

Make Me Feel Good

Life:  Here’s a conversation from my vacation… Sister: Try this book. I loved it.  Me: What’s it about? Sis: It’s dark and screwed up. Right up your alley. Me: Thanks? Sis: It’s a two-parter. The sequel’s supposed to come out early next year.  Me: What if it doesn’t? Sis: It will. The author says it will.  Me: I’ll wait. So I can read it all at once.  Sis: Haven’t you ever heard of delayed gratification? Me: Never been a huge fan.  Sis: Oh, I realize. I’ve known you
Life and Writing

Home, Sweet Home

Life: We arrived home last night after a two-week vacation. It was a working vacation, but still. I feel that two weeks is too long to be away. I missed my dogs, my bed, my morning coffee on the back deck… all the things. I don’t mind travel, even for work, but I’m always happy to come home. I didn’t always feel this way. I used to wander all over the place and was famous for taking off for faraway places without a passing thought to an itinerary. So I guess people do change.    W
Book review

Book Review: Men in Caring Occupations by Ruth Simpson

In Britain, men make-up just under 10% of nurses and yet the image of nursing still firmly remains female. So what does it mean to be a man in a female dominated profession? Ruth Simpson (Professor in Management at Brunel Business School) undertook research looking at gender roles in employment. She looked at the experiences of men in four different traditionally female dominated professions (which were cabin crew on airplanes, nurses, primary school teachers and librarians). This research
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Book review

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Book review

Book Review: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot is ill, he is dying, and he invites his old friend, Arthur Hastings, to stay with him at the Styles guesthouse, for one, last investigation. Poirot, though now an invalid, is chasing his one last case, a serial killer with a terrible modus operandi, known only as X. Here Christie returned to the location of the very first Poirot novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, except this is not the glamorous life of the upper-class people who filled Christie’s novels of the 1930s and
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Book review

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Book review

Book Review: A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell

“Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.” This isn’t a plot-spoiler but the opening line to one of Ruth Rendell’s finest novels. Though she sums up the plot of her novel in one line, there is much more to this book. It is the mid 1970s and the upper middle class Coverdale family have moved to a manor house in the English countryside, but the housework is “too much” for Mrs Coverdale, so Eunice Parchman is hired as housekeeper-come-general-dog’s-
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Book review

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Life and Writing

You know what you know.

Writing: When I started writing fiction, I figured the places where I grew up, studied, worked and lived weren’t interesting enough to inspire readers. So I wrote about places that had never been home or that I hadn’t even visited. And I would keep the scale of those locations small or familiar to the masses. Settings that needed very little information to imagine.  It took me a while to get over this.  Fiction is often a reflection of what is real, and what better way to convey t
Life and Writing

Never be afraid of what people think of you.

Writing:  This was a hard one to teach my kids, because the desire to want to please and belong is partly innate. But living your life for others is neither fun nor healthy. Writing is the same. For each person you worry about pleasing, deduct 1% in quality from your writing. Don’t worry. No one stays at 100%. These days, I usually deduct 5-10% right off the top. (It used to be much higher. Thank you, formulaic fiction industry.) So who am I worried about now? All sorts of folks. Peopl
Background of the Bad Dog

Still Here, Still Fighting

Well, that sucked. Three years ago, I decided to return to school because my body couldn't pull 00 cables through underground conduit anymore. I was tired of my body coming home in pain and living off painkillers to function. Being a construction electrician was good money, but it took a toll on my body. My first significant improvement was moving from construction to maintenance, going from high to low voltage, and doing more controls instead of panels. That first semester of school coinci
Review

'Pansies' by Alexis Hall

Pansies by Alexis Hall. My rating: 5 out of 5 stars Why bother with a predictable or exotic location for your queer romance when South Shields in the NE of England works perfectly well? I love the way Alexis Hall sees beyond the surface drabness of a run-down coastal town to find so many points of character, fascination, and natural beauty. And surely it's important some queer tales take place in forgotten geographic corners. Not everyone lives in London, Manchester, or Brighton.
northie

northie in Review

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Life and Writing

Writing and Life. In that order.

Writing: Get in and get out. I write novels because they’re in demand. But my favorite writing project is a short story. It’s not often I get asked for them. Certainly not as often as I’d like, and I understand that. People want novels.   But a good short story… chef’s kiss. To read is fun, but to create is divine. I encourage the site’s authors to give the short story form a try, if they haven’t. “Experts” say many of the same writing rules apply, whether penning novels or short form
Life and Writing

What shapes the writer...

There was an article on Open Culture about a week ago that I’m just now getting around to linking because… that’s my life. My dog actually got in my lap this afternoon (plot twist: he’s not a lapdog, but a fifty-pound Brittany in his prime), probably in an effort to pin me in place for five minutes. It worked. I sent emails. Watched some YouTube videos. I even drank a cup of coffee while it was hot. Pretty epic.  Check this out if you never have before. Less to compare your have-read list t
General Ramblings

My real first month on GA.

I don't generally write many blog posts, I never really have.  I used to keep a journal in my teens and honestly I wish I still had them to fall back on to see how my thought processes have changed over the years.  Have I gotten better, have I gotten worse.  I joined GA back in 2006, because I was friends with someone who is now considered a Classic Author, but never really posted anything.  I was brought back again in 2011, 2012 but still didn't post anything. I came back this time because
blog post

When Words Are Not Enough

“Life is so cruel,” it was all I could think of to say to my nephew Stuart, who was on the other end of the phone. I was sat on the Brompton Road, the traffic rushing passed me with far too much haste, slight drizzle beginning to fall. I had missed Stuart’s message on Facebook, the day before, I’m not great with social media, so I was returning his call. Stuart wanted me to hear it from someone who knew me, a friendly voice. Dave, my only brother, had died, suddenly, two days ago.
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in blog post

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