A Fortnum & Mason’s tin, a new face at the WI, and a silence that says more than it should. Half-Measures — a Maggie B. story about charm, control, and what’s left unspoken. www.brittleviews.com/p/half-measu... #MaggieB #ShortStory #QuietFiction #BritishFiction #WryComedy #LiteraryFiction

What holds us isn’t always strength—it’s the quiet balance between stillness and fire. New on Brittle Views: an essay about friendship, family, and the small acts of endurance that keep the light moving forward. www.brittleviews.com/p/between-st... #essays #writing #reflection #presence #stillness

Avoidance isn’t distance. It’s defense — what love looks like when it’s been singed too many times. My latest essay, The Architecture of Safety, is about learning to live inside our defenses differently. www.brittleviews.com/p/the-archit... #Essays #Healing #Vulnerability #Boundaries

Friendship moves through us — in gestures, laughter, and the stillness that asks for nothing. The Light Between Us is about love as continuation — what we carry forward, and what carries us. www.brittleviews.com/p/the-light-... 🕯 Read & share if it speaks to you. #Friendship #Essays #BrittleViews

A new chapter of Holding On is out. Emma’s sketchbook becomes a bridge—between grief and grace, silence and story. It’s about how love endures through the act of making. shorturl.at/WI3Nz #HoldingOn #QuietFiction #FamilyStories #LiteraryFiction Read, reflect, and share if it lingers.

Even in Lower Tissington, the records don’t tell the whole story. Counted, Not Named — a new Maggie B. Casefile about what gets tallied, and what’s left unsaid. www.brittleviews.com/p/counted-no... #BrittleViews #MaggieB #QuietFiction #BritishFiction #ShortStory

In this latest chapter, Emma sketches as Ralph recalls. Washing lines, laughter, a red peg swinging in sunlight. A beetle becomes a prince on a quest. It’s a chapter about how memory is carried forward — in stories retold, in drawings remade, in quiet bonds between generations. shorturl.at/ZjuMI

She wasn’t always “Maggie B.” Some stories refuse to be numbered, some moments refuse to be forgotten. 🍊 The new Casefile is live: This One Doesn’t Count. Come for the village oddities. Stay for what lingers. #MaggieB #ShortStory #LiteraryFiction #EnglishVillageLife shorturl.at/70oIt

Defiance is lived in bodies: fire on the tongue, breath pulled from smoke, knees refusing the ground. When they come to erase us, let them meet a wall of us, together, unbroken. www.brittleviews.com/p/unbroken

In this week's Holding On, a long-kept letter is finally opened. Lily’s voice returns—warm, wry, unflinching—her words reverberating. It’s about legacies spoken aloud: silence, guilt, forgiveness, and the fragile hope of repair. shorturl.at/2fgHC #FamilyStories #LiteraryFiction #Caregiving

It’s Monday. Another Maggie B. Casefile. Step into Lower Tissington — where a Women’s Institute coach trip to York brings medals, pigeons, and a recognition Maggie nearly allows. www.brittleviews.com/p/a-respecta... #MaggieB #Casefiles #Fiction #VillageLife #LiteraryFiction

This week: – Presence as a framework for living aligned. – Rachel seeing her brother differently in Holding On. – Bread rolls, grease, and silence in All The Way In. – Maggie B. leaving just enough unsaid. What we carry forward isn’t just memory—it’s how presence reshapes us. shorturl.at/Bsob6

Flashback Friday isn’t only about the past. Memory also lives in the present, shaping how we step into what’s next. In Currents and Crossings, I write about retirement, reinvention, and the streams that give life meaning — with presence as the thread that ties it all together. shorturl.at/cVJV6

New chapter of Holding On is out. It’s about memory pressed into a journal, about siblings fumbling toward presence, about how showing up — even imperfectly — can still be enough. www.brittleviews.com/p/chapter-ei... #LiteraryFiction #QuietFiction #Grief #Family

A short delay on the next Holding On chapter — it’ll be here tomorrow. For today, I’m sharing a piece from my misspent youth: exuberance, recklessness, and bread rolls in flight. www.brittleviews.com/p/all-the-wa... #brittleviews #needledrops #misspentyouth

Mavis Holt brought lemon curd, but left with something else—an outline shaped by silence. The newest Maggie B. Casefile: Just Enough. Come for the curd. Stay for the withheld stories. www.brittleviews.com/p/just-enough #TheMaggieBCasefiles #BrittleViews #SmallStoriesBigEchoes

A week of noise and silence: essays on Charlie Kirk’s murder, the theft of mourning, and a father’s courage. Balanced by Maggie B.’s quiet defiance and Emma’s letter to Grandad in Holding On. Stories stitched from memory, mischief, and meaning. shorturl.at/P9YnF #GriefAndMemory #PersonalEssays

31 years ago I wrote: “Words are so empty. Just noise.” This week proved otherwise. Words are never empty—they’re forged into slogans, sharpened into wounds, choreographed as grief. Flashback Friday: Who owns grief, and who abuses it? shorturl.at/2C93c #Defiance #FlashbackFriday #WeaponizedGrief

A single gunshot became a narrative war overnight. I wrote about Charlie Kirk’s assassination—not to justify or condemn him, but to ask what happens to us when grief is sharpened into a blade. www.brittleviews.com/p/the-weapon... Read & share if it resonates. #BrittleViews #Essays #Grief #Politics

Emma takes the story in her hands. A blank page. A letter to her grandad. Silence turning into words. Chapter 17 of Holding On is here. shorturl.at/OuNX9 Share if you know the weight of memory—and the relief of setting it down. #QuietFiction #Family #Grief #LiteraryFiction

It began with a trifle and a dare. It ended with soup, a fig bar, and silence that carried more than words. The new Maggie B. casefile, Set for Two, is up. Quiet grief, quiet respect. www.brittleviews.com/p/set-for-two #MaggieB #ShortStory #LiteraryFiction #VillageLife

Every Friday I re-enter an earlier piece of writing. Not repeats, but reimaginings. This one began with a 2021 poem called No More Talk and became a story of release and resilience. www.brittleviews.com/p/what-i-cho... #FlashbackFriday #BrittleViews #ShortStory #Memory

The streets are blank. The chalk is back. Memory refuses to vanish. New Brittle Views: What They Can’t Scrub Away — a reflection on erasure, spectacle politics, and quiet defiance. www.brittleviews.com/p/what-they-...

From fracture to repair. This week in Holding On: Rachel steadied, Emma reached for, Lily lingering in memory. www.brittleviews.com/p/chapter-si... A quiet chapter where silence changes shape. #HoldingOn #QuietFiction #Family #LiteraryFiction

This last trip home to the UK felt different. Someone asked why — and the only word I could offer was presence. A new poem: Presence. www.brittleviews.com/p/presence If it resonates, pass it along or subscribe. #Poetry #Presence #BrittleViews

Boys built an effigy, villagers dropped coins, and Reginald found his old campaign jacket staring back at him. Enjoy the latest Maggie B. Casefile. Come for the village mischief. Stay for the quiet reckonings. www.brittleviews.com/p/a-pound-fo... #MaggieB #VillageMystery #QuietReckonings

Flags as warnings, letters finally sent, Maggie’s notebook in hand, and a novel chapter that aches in silence. Two weeks of travel, memory, and soft rebellions. Read the full recap: www.brittleviews.com/p/not-loud-b... #BrittleViews #WritingCommunity #Memoir #QuietStories #UKTravel

Flags once meant pride. Now too often they feel like fists. The real betrayal isn’t a family fleeing war—it’s a politician hiding behind a banner, pocketing your future. Whose flag is it anyway? www.brittleviews.com/p/whose-flag... #Defiance #Politics #WhoseFlag

Sometimes the heaviest thing isn’t what we say — it’s the envelope left in the drawer. This week’s Flashback Friday began with a poem for a friend, and became a story about silence, distance, and the moment before sending. shorturl.at/txAqM #FlashbackFriday #Friendship #Memory

Chapter 15 of Holding On is here. A mother’s fury. A daughter’s flinch. A closed door that says more than words. www.brittleviews.com/p/chapter-fi... #QuietFiction #Grief #Caregiving #Family

Heading back to the US tomorrow — after 30 years, my other home. In Devon I saw yarnbombed lampposts and post boxes, flashes of wool stitched where they didn’t belong. It made me wonder how Lower Tissington would react. www.brittleviews.com/p/unravelled #MaggieB #QuietResistance #VillageMystery

Last time, Rachel set the plan. David bent it—and paid the price. Now, it’s Emma who speaks the question no one wants to name. Still holding on. Even when silence says the most. shorturl.at/z5CS1 📝 Share your thoughts. And if the story stays with you, subscribe to keep reading along.

Lower Tissington can explain most things. A stranger who keeps appearing—and a fig bar gone missing—are harder to tidy. Maggie notices. That’s where it begins. Share / subscribe if this resonates. www.brittleviews.com/p/quiet-with... #MaggieB #SubtleMysteries #CharacterDriven

New this week: When Absence Leaves a Trail. Maggie follows a puzzle no one meant to solve. A key disappears. Hospice walls bend under the weight of family. And steel rails carry me home across decades. www.brittleviews.com/p/when-absen... #WritingCommunity #MemoryAndMeaning #QuietResistance

4 visitors. 2 days. No exceptions. David thought “just family” left wiggle room. It didn’t. This week in Holding On: a hospice room too full, a sister’s patience too thin, and a quiet bridge built before the night ends. shorturl.at/heCRu #LiteraryFiction #Grief #SiblingDynamics #SerializedFiction

The New York Times just published a powerful article outlining efforts by Trump allies to revive family separation as policy. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/u... As a father, immigrant, and citizen, I couldn’t stay silent. This essay is my response. Not a report. A refusal. shorturl.at/X0Y5z

What happens when everyone at the party assumes you're someone you're not? And what happens when… you don’t correct them? Misrecognition, teal silk, and a sticker that says more than it should. shorturl.at/KA78b Read / share / sub #NeedleDrops #quietstories #identity #storytelling #queerallyship

“To take the tin is to take the burden.” In The Queen Vic Incident, Maggie B. observes a biscuit-based uprising, a renegotiated peace, and the emotional weight of communal rituals. No crime. Just something off. shorturl.at/yKF09 #MaggieB #BiscuitDiplomacy #VillageMystery #QuietResistance

What links a rooftop promise, a protest photo, and a funeral tea? Each story this week—essay, poem, fiction—asked the same quiet question: What are you willing to revisit in order to move forward? Soft threads. Strong ties. Read if you’ve ever shown up late—but still showed up. shorturl.at/OqOZT

Chapter Ten of Holding On is out now—narrated too. It’s David’s chapter this time. The guilt, the awkward grief, the ladder still leaning. Still holding on. Just from a different place. shorturl.at/s4EQ7 If it lands, repost or subscribe. #HoldingOn #SerializedFiction #NarratedFiction

New short story: They Did Nothing. Crematorium tea. Beige coats. Curling sandwiches. The silence between them wasn’t empty—just full of what they still wouldn’t say. www.brittleviews.com/p/they-did-n... #ShortFiction #TheyDidNothing #Complicity #BritishGothic

This week, Maggie finds herself on the receiving end of a casserole-based guilt trip, a cookbook no one asked for, and a quiet confrontation she wasn’t quite prepared for. It’s called The Frugal Kitchen. Narrated version just went up. shorturl.at/ZdInC

I meant to do a recap last week. But I was off chasing ghosts and jam conspiracies. Here’s a double-dose: essays, fiction, satire, grief, and the poem that sparked it all. If something here stirs something—pass it on. shorturl.at/sm9dJ #memoir #fiction #satire #grief #substack #BrittleViews

Nine chapters. One vigil. Part I of Holding On is complete. If you’ve read this far, thank you—for bearing witness. If you’re new: this isn’t a story of plot twists. It’s a bedside vigil, told one breath at a time. Grief, memory, soup, silence. shorturl.at/xZLal #family #slowfiction #holdingon

She was the keeper of memories. But now, it’s time to let go. Chapter 9 marks the close of Part One—a chapter filled with reverence, quiet confessions, and the fragile grace of saying goodbye. A photo album. A promise. A final breath. And the beginning of something else. shorturl.at/SOOGb

New casefile up today: A Matter of Plot. Reginald just wanted to grow his brassicas. Instead, he got a minor turf war, seven unsolicited gnomes, and Maggie B. with a thermos of ginger tea. It's not really about the gnomes, of course. www.brittleviews.com/p/a-matter-o...

She only went for the sponge cake. She uncovered a scandal. Plum compote masquerading as homemade raspberry jam. A showdown with the Women’s Institute. Another Maggie B. casefile, filed under “bittersweet.” www.brittleviews.com/p/jamgate #Jamgate #ShortStories #MaggieB #BrittleViews #BritishSatire

The loudest voices in the masculinity debate are angry. But what about the quiet ones? The ones who just want room to feel, to care, to be. New from me: (He Showed Me) Another Way www.brittleviews.com/p/he-showed-... #masculinity #softness #healing #careasstrength #brittleviews

President Trump just imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil—to stop Bolsonaro from standing trial. This isn’t economic policy. It’s authoritarian solidarity. And it should terrify anyone who still believes in rule of law. shorturl.at/ULejX #Defiance #BrittleViews #Trump2025 #GlobalDemocracy

She came three weeks early. I was 24, unprepared—but already in love. For #FlashbackFriday, I’m revisiting a poem I wrote for my daughter. She turned 40 this week. shorturl.at/SHWIb The story hasn’t changed. But I have. And so has the meaning. #Poetry #Memory #Fatherhood #BrittleViews