Bob's second draft of Desolation Row.

They're selling postcards of the bandstand/ They're painting the deckchairs blue / The beauty parlor is filled with sailors / The circus is due / 👀

Bob's first draft of Desolation Row

Felt a bit seen in that Fouracres sketch at the end of #SNLUK. Gas fires, Irish Grandads, a Black Country flag - that's half of my schtick. (The other half is pubs, women, death)

Love this one (pubs, women, death...) 👏

"On Monday a large stone crashes through the window. It is wrapped in an abusive letter. Eva doesn’t know what to do. She worries. Is it a neighbour? Young people? Old people?" An unexpected event goes in an unexpected direction in this story by Rob Walton. newflashfiction.com/rock-paper-s...

This sunny-ish Sunday, we have a Prompted Story spotlight from @scribblerotoole.bsky.social We loved the setting and the fabulous character voices. We felt like we were with the MC on his search. Great imagery, and an intriguing and tantalising story. Read here: trashcatlit.com/the-seven-of...

Thanks once again to Trash Cat for the kind words and the chance to get this one out there. 🙌

This is the short story I wrote for the splendid Mat Baynton to read. Quick hit of bittersweet school band nostalgia... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Delighted to see this one out there, thanks to @everydayfiction.bsky.social. Also thanks to @raecowie.bsky.social for her help with it.

She gave him the answer he wanted. Five is a number most men like. The thing is, some numbers mean more than they sound.... New flash fiction from @maurayzmore.bsky.social . Check it out at the Garage: literarygarage.com/body-count

Coming 7.07.2026 The shit will hit the fan......

A five minute read if you have rain on the Bank Holiday. Thanks to Trash Cat Lit for putting up this one. trashcatlit.com/the-seven-of...

And just like that, the Spring Prompted Stories Pop-Up is available for your reading pleasure 🦝 Nineteen imaginative and creative flash created from prompts. We love it, you'll love, go get it 💜 trashcatlit.com/prompted-sto... 1/3

Blokes queuing up outside the local at midday to have three pints of mild and put the world to rights.

Countdown to popping a cork for this one...

Very pleased to have made the cut on this one. Congrats to all the other writers too. (Claps little raccoon hands)

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 43: When writing morally ambivalent or even downright bad characters: it's worth remembering that readers forgive a lot from a character who makes them laugh.

It's a fan favourite in the Black Country.

It’s time to come out swinging. You care about short stories? Please read The Hotdog Short Story Manifesto. substack.com/@drewgummers...

Knocked out a thousand word short this morning. Now to whittle it down to the five hundred word limit for this prompt competition...

Saw more than a few goldfinches on my walk this morning. Lovely wee things.

DG Taylor's Adventures in Television (#iykyk)

Took a trip home to try the Bathams AF (and at the very pub mentioned in this article). Wise words here.

Felt a bit seen in that Fouracres sketch at the end of #SNLUK. Gas fires, Irish Grandads, a Black Country flag - that's half of my schtick. (The other half is pubs, women, death)

He spent fifty years perfecting nothing. Now he’s stuck with it. Our flash feature “Just Hanging Out” by Jim Harrington is up—short, quiet, and heavier than it looks. At the Garage: literarygarage.com/just-hanging...

Windy out there - the air is full of hats and hay.

I sometimes worry that too many people think being a good critic means being a self-righteous dick about every little thing and I think far too many miss the point that you can't critique anything if you don't know how to love something.

A reminder that in 2021, @patrickfreyne.bsky.social wrote the best explanatory lede regarding colonialism and monarchy that I have ever seen. www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

fractured, crazy Black Country www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Interesting article www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Rare find here.

This is the reward bottle for getting this short published. Thanks to Literary Garage, hat tip to the Big Man. literarygarage.com/the-big-man

Staffies

Moby Dick (Melville, 1851)

Year of the Horse is a good excuse for start to finish Bojack Horseman rewatch

St Practice Day

No mention of the Christmas party... surely there's a story in that.

Been watching this over the last week or so - worth a go if you're looking for something in half hour chunks. Very NY, made me miss the place, will we ever get to go back? (And an absolute banger of a needle drop in the final scene) www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

"TV. It’s a nepotistic industry. Here’s as close as I get to a nepo story, although it skipped a generation - my Grandad built his own television from a mail-order kit and spare parts he borrowed from work." First lines of my novel. A hundred years of nepotism. #amwriting #indielit

wee Wee Yellow Cranes

Springbank single malt, and the fact it's become hard to find, plays a part in the short I'm currently writing. So when I saw it in a pub earlier I had to buy a shot. Coincidences, eh.

Used to think about one of these jobs a lot... Wonder what the Xmas party is like.

"Guys like Morton were front men for the wiseguys, who couldn't have their names on the liquor license."

At CDG airport in Paris. Two irate customers at Pret A Manager demanding to speak to the (obviously non existent) manager. Why not ask to speak to Charles de Gaulle himself?

In the old days, good writers got famous for selling books. Nowadays, bad writers sell books by being famous.

Look, all I’m saying is that why are there so many black, Asian, and indigenous characters and homoeroticism forced into a story set in pre-Civil War America that drills it into us that the villain is white?

"While other children were learning that A is for apple and B is for banana, little Philbert soaked up words like circulation and dermatitis and elephantiasis." Eloquent, elegant fiction from @EmmetHirschMD | www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/emme... Art @anchalastudio.bsky.social

Sneacta!

I agree. Full of gems like this: "A complicated childhood full of privation and catastrophe isn’t an inheritance that sets up a writer for life."