Graeme

A Week On The Farm by Graeme Dear Uncle George, Mum and Dad said that I should write to you to thank you for letting Frank and me stay with you for a week. So, thanks! We had a wonderful time with you, Aunt Mabel and our cousin John. There were so many great times that I’m not sure if I can list them all, but I think one of the best was when we made the scarecrows with the old clothing we found near the dam. I made a boy scarecrow and Frank made a girl one. He wasn’t happy abou

“Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Have a good weekend!” “Same to you, Paul.” The elderly gentleman turned his walker around and headed inside his house. Paul stuck the cash into his back pocket and pulled out the list from his shirt pocket. “Where to next?” Christine asked. “The Fitzgeralds’ in the next street over.” Paul slipped the paper back into his pocket. “I’m glad we organised this during the week so we don’t have to go looking for work today. We’ve got a full weekend of mowing and gar

Short Story: A group of teenagers work to raise money for a particular cause.

It's really difficult to get reliable figures because it's dependent on people responding honestly to the questions (and the questions themselves can introduce bias). The percentage of homosexuals in the population tends to vary from 2-10% in most surveys, but it's questionable on how they count bisexuals. A lot also depends on the questions ask. For example, I'm in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. If you ask about current sexual activity, or sexual activity over the last ten years (say), you'd put me down as straight. If you ask if I've ever had sex with a male, you might put me down as bisexual, as I've had sex with a male when I was a teenager. If you ask what I personally consider myself to be, you'd put me down as gay. I'm inclined to think that the 10% figure is for people who have a preference for their own gender, but not necessarily exclusively. I'd fit into that category. The 2% figure is probably for people who would only consider having a sexual relationship with their own gender (exclusively homosexual). From memory, the UK government used the 10% figure when they calculated the costs of legalising same-sex unions. The more I see, the more I'm inclined to think the 10% figure is about right, especially when you consider that it's much more likely that people will lie against labelling themselves as homosexual compared to people who will lie to label themselves as homosexual. In other words, surveys probably underestimate the homosexual numbers.

A Legal Wedding By Graeme “Scott, Michael, what a pleasant surprise!” Paula Denton held open the front door and accepted kisses from the young men as they entered. “Hi, Mum. Is Dad around? We’ve got something to tell both of you,” Scott said. “He’s in the kitchen, eating his breakfast.” She raised an eyebrow at her son. “It is only eight on a Sunday morning. You’re lucky that he’s up.” Scott laughed. “Yeah, I know we’re early, but I couldn’t wait any longer.” Paula’s eyes

When you need a loophole to do something, having a lawyer as a best friend certainly helps.

For His Own Good by Graeme Sharon smiled. The dinner party was starting well with everyone mixing. She had known that Tom and Glenda could be relied on – they had been to many of her dinner parties – but she had been concerned about Mark. He was a late addition to the invitee list when she learnt she had to find a ‛partner’ for Carl at short notice. There being an even number of people at her dinner parties wasn’t essential, but she thought it worked out better when there was. Wh

Sharon knew that Carl was in a bad relationship. She would stop at nothing to get him out.

I've cried while watching a lot of movies, but I can't remember most of them One movie that I've never forgotten that I cried at, and that I've never been ashamed of crying at was "E.T.".

I think the poll is wrong. I didn't get married for love or benefits. As TetRefine said, you don't need to marry because you love someone. What I got married for was to show my love and commitment, and do it in a public and legally binding way. We didn't have to get married to be together, and I have family members who haven't married but are in long term relationships, one of which has children from the relationship, and another who has children from a failed marriage. I'll admit that part of the reason I got married was because of societal pressure. There was an expectation that I would get married, and when I found someone to love, there was an implicit pressure to marry them. There was no explicit pressure -- no one told me that I should get married -- but I wanted to do what was 'right' in my view and in the view of what I thought society wanted. So neither love nor benefits were the reasons I married. I already had the love, and the benefits were not a factor in the decision.

The 2010 GA Winter Anthology is now online! The theme is "Haunted", but interestingly many authors have not gone with a supernatural theme. We have a number of new anthology authors with this anthology, and some strong poetry from past contributors. Many of the stories are quite short, but we also have one of the longest anthology stories I've seen. Take your time and enjoy the collection. Everyone is sure to be something that appeals to them. Graeme GA Anthology Coordinator Altimexis - Possession Bret and Pete decide to explore the site where the football team captain’s body was found earlier that winter, but then Pete starts to act very strangely. Angel Propps - Memory Is Long It is not always the dead who haunt us but the memories of places and loves long gone Bugeye - Consider Arbitrary A life is a song and the past, future and present often sing different lyrics. But, the melody haunts all three. Cia - Hubris He was never alone. Rage against that which torments him has broken him completely. His fate is decided. Comicality - Of The Flesh Haunted by the memory of someone I've never met. Dolores Esteban - Prisoner of the Past He had left his old life behind. At least, that was what he thought. He didn’t realize that his memories were just locked up in some dark chamber of his brain. Jan Vander Laenen - The Angel Can an angel drive you crazy? Johnathan_Colourfield - The Everlasting War The Birth of The Time Travellers and The Everlasting War. Light VS Dark. And the ghost of the ginger haired boy reflecting upon the one thing that created his shame. Or was he really ashamed of it? Kevin Caucher - Quarter after One You always see him call Phil at 1:15. Lily Gilding - Wings of Ink There are people in this world who choose to be haunted by the demons of the past. They are the people who shackle those demons upon their body. Lugh - The Union of Darkness and Light Some faery tales start with a kiss; some end with a kiss. They all take place in a perfect world. Well, if you don't count the wicked step-mother and the prince-eating dragon. This is my version of a modern faery tale. There are no wicked step-mothers nor prince-eating dragons, but not everything is exactly perfect either. And it all starts with a kiss... NightOwl - Tipping the Hourglass We all have regrets in our pasts, we've all made mistakes. Sometimes they haunt us. What if we were truly able to change those mistakes? Rebecca Perlow - Where I Found You After the suicide of his terminally ill mother, Sam Nieman goes on a bender that leads to old memories, older boyfriends and some creative interpretations of philosophical theory. Rilbur Skryler - Fallen Ilaria Ilaria fell almost instantly. The shining towers and towering ramparts of her walls proved useless, and the sinews of the great Knights of Ilarus were shattered under the demon's attack. Etral Et Ilaria must live with the consequences of that failure, though he would give so very much to give up the burden. Stargazer - East of Midnight Why couldn’t Chase just embrace the events that occurred between him and Xander and let that be it? Why did he have to analyze every damn thing? Young Sage - Tell Me That You Love Me The story of a man unable to let go.

Of The Flesh by Comicality Haunted by the memory of someone I've never met. :nuke: :nuke: Spoilers Below!!! :nuke: :nuke:

Trick or Treat? by Graeme “Welcome to the party of the year,” Cole said. Brett sat down at the second control panel and looked out the window that overlooked the large hall, which was packed with students. Newly built and not too far from the college, the building provided an ideal location for large parties and other major functions. “I wouldn’t’ve missed this for anything. I’ve never known one of Peter’s parties to be a dud, so I can’t believe his dad built this place just beca

2006 Fall Anthology

The Search for Pandora By Graeme Iswirl Viulve waited until his human companion joined him in the darkness of the access chute, and then released the hold he had maintained on the guard’s aura for more than twenty minutes. “Thanks, mate. That ability of yours certainly made it easier to sneak onboard, even if it does take a long time for you to put someone into a daze,” Herk Collier whispered. Iswirl ignored the insult, as Herk’s aura was the grey-streaked cyan

Iswirl and Herk are searching for Herk's sister and they are down to their last lead.

Good luck, Percy! The eFiction software is a little quirky, but there are lots of people here who can help you out with that, and it will hopefully be replaced soon anyway. Graeme

Selection Criteria By Graeme “There they are!” Matt cried out as he stood and waved to the group that had just entered the bar. Kerri grinned. “So I’m finally going to get to meet the people you work with. I’ve been wondering if they were figments of your imagination, and you’re actually a janitor at NASA and not a psychologist.” Matt gave her a quick peck on the cheek and then showed her his palms. “Do these look like the hands of an environmental superintendent?” She took h

Ensuring the psychological stability of the crew for the first manned interstellar is a big responsibility.

While it's never been officially stated, the membership of that committee is believed to be as follows: Head of the GA's Writer Support Team: C James Author: C James Hosted Author: C James Moderator: C James Administrator of GA : C James GA Team Leader: C James Former Anthology Coordinator: C James Which goes to show how active C James is -- he did all of the above AND ran the committee of the above members....

From what I've heard, the report is most likely to be about an extremophile form of life here on Earth. That is, a native earth life form that is unusual enough that it suggests that life could exist in places that would normally be consider inhospitable to life. Another possibility would be to do with the high hydrogen readings in Titan's (one of the moons of Saturn and the only moon in the Solar System with an atmosphere) which some have suggested could be signs of a form of life. Either way, I'm not holding my breath. I get the impression that this is more hype than substance, though I'd love to be proven wrong

Here is one place, and the Writer's Corner is another. Good luck, but I suspect you'll need to provide a lot more detail before anyone will express any serious interest. If I was considering co-writing, the sorts of things I'd want to know are: Genre (I don't do well in some genres, and others I don't like) Suggested method of collaboration (communications are key for this, so will it be email, IM, face-to-face, or a combination?) Samples of the other co-writer's writing. Some people write in a style that I can't match, and so it wouldn't work because the writing would be disjointed. Editing. If both authors have long time editors, how will the editing get done? There may be other things, too, but that's a starting list before I'd even consider looking at co-writing with someone.

Fascinating! There's so much we still have to learn about stellar evolution and this is something that can help with that. A really minor quibble -- the black hole is not 30 years old. It's been thirty years since the light from the event that formed it reached Earth. The actual event occurred approximately 50 million years ago -- we're just seeing the process now. On that basis, the Crab nebula is younger, but since it's all relative...

I've just read the following article in an Australian newspaper: Bromance Gets Physical Personally, I can see the study being accurate, but not applicable in Australia (as shown by the largely negative comments). Australian males typically can't separate kissing from sexuality, despite the clear example of girls kissing other girls as a friendly greeting devoid of sexual connotations. They just can't see that it can be the same for guys. Having said that, I don't believe I could kiss a male friend on the lips as a sign of non-sexual friendship. My cultural upbringing would make that difficult. Any other opinions?

CJ has requested I step in and put on my moderator hat to adjudicate. Which says something about the level of intelligence of our goat friend :mace: Firstly, this is not blackmail. The chapter is not being withheld, and Trevor is not being slowly drowned while we wait (quickly drowned, maybe, but definitely not slowly). So, as a long term moderator of this site, I have to declare that I don't believe this is blackmail. If he threatened to not post the next chapter at all, that would be a different matter, but all he's doing is offering a bonus if people are nice to him and lie.... BUT ... (you all knew there was going to be a but, didn't you ) Closer examination of the site rules reveals the following: Given the outrage that has been expressed, I think chapter 48 is clearly in breach of the site rules by being very disruptive in this forum. In particular, some members are feeling extremely distressed and this could pose a danger for some of those members. However, rather than having the chapter removed, I think the appropriate penalty would be an early posting of the next chapter. If C James does not do so, he should be subject to more stringent penalties... and I'm happy to hear suggestions from the members who have been suffering as a consequence of this disruptive behaviour. In the interest of fairness, though, I'd like to hear what others think. Has chapter 48 broken the site rules by being extremely disruptive? What do you think? Would requiring an early posting of chapter 49 be a suitable punishment, or should other punishments also apply? Over to you PS: I was wondering if we should lobby to have item (10) above changed to add "character" to the pose danger part? That way we'll have even better grounds for claims of disruption if he places any of the characters in danger.