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Onwards and er onwards
I should probably announce that I received heartwarming news recently that I have had two stories ‘All that thinking’ and ‘Filch’ longlisted in the prestigious Sean O’ Faolain prize. This is an international prize run by Munster Lit Writers Centre who publish the Literary magazine Southword. Particularly chuffed because the longlist wasn’t particularly long! The…
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#fridayflash Tales of monsoon and adventure
She woke to the sound of the monsoon drumbeat and all she could think was ‘my sheets!’ She had left them on the washing line all night. She had stepped out into the garden before going to bed and the air was so starched linen clean that she’d stopped – the dusk against her cheeks…
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#Fridayflash Origami Flamingos
This relates to a previous flash Close Encounters with Goldfish. That’s the trouble with origami flamingos, they crumple under duress. Exotic-pathetic. I needed something with a little more resilience, like the steel ties you put inside hardening concrete. ‘Pipe cleaners’ said my nephew Gary. ‘Good idea’ I said, thinking somehow of Dali’s elephants. There was…
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The Wobegone’s Slaughtered Dreams on Year Zero
I was recently asked by Marcella O’ Connor one of the fine writers in the Year Zero collective to submit a piece of flash to which she would add music and interpret the script in a video piece. It’s fascinating how such a treatment adds a layer of meaning to the piece and enhances it,…
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5 New School Year Resolutions for Writing Parents
In which I muse aloud and you get to listen in. Although it varies by a week or two across the Northern Hemisphere for many parents, children round about now are returning to school and the more rigid routines of school days, homework and earlier bedtimes will come into play. As parents we need to…
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#Fridayflash Pre-determination
Have you ever watched an ant crawling across the floor? Of course you have. Did you wonder where it was going to end up? Did you wait for it to find that crumb or sugar crystal and pick it up in its paws or its mouth or whatever it uses. Then did you amuse yourself…
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Review of Too Many Magpies by Elizabeth Baines
Domesticity never takes place upon a large or lauded stage, it is a private, secret world whose interactions and observances are held and carried forward into ‘real life’. Elizabeth Baines’ book places the domestic in this central, core position. ‘A young mother married to a scientist fears for her children’s saftey as the natural world…
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#Fridayflash Some other platform
Do you remember that night in Crewe? Of course you don’t, you weren’t there. I was carrying you in a small space behind my chest at the time. It was like I had a second heart the same as Dr. Who. And I come from Gallifrey too. So far away, can never go back, the…
Welcome to my Head above Water blog! I’m Alison, writer, mother and public librarian with a background in Communication Studies and Psychology. I have a particular interest in creative resilience, motivation and how nature and wonder can restore us. In my day job I run book clubs and creative events for children and adults.
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Alison Wells Author 