Love in the Margins by MaryPat Campbell This wintry day I set to work. My skill with inking the great capitals and minor letters improves each season. Two decades ago, my father brought me to this monastery. Our long journey…
BackStory: Five Questions with Peter Burns
BackStory: Five Questions with Peter Burns Author of The Fur-puller What inspired you to write ‘The Fur-puller’? This flash piece started off as an activity on my MA in Creative Writing with The Open University. We were to write an…
The Fur-puller
The Fur-puller by Peter Burns Rose and her boy been standing in line for two hours now, and young Billy hasn’t managed ten minutes without coughing. Not that anyone in that line would notice, their own lives being a world…
BackStory: Five Questions with Christine Collinson
BackStory: Five Questions with Christine Collinson Author of A Piecer’s Tale What inspired you to write “A Piecer’s Tale”? It was inspired by Quarry Bank Mill in Styal where they have some working machinery. We also spent some time in…
A Piecer’s Tale
A Piecer’s Tale by Christine Collinson Mr. Hendrick is watching me. “Work faster, girl!” he bellows over the clack-clack of the looms. I heap loose fibres into the sack, just like every day, and hold my misery tightly inside. He…
BackStory: Five Questions with Michelle Hemstedt
BackStory: Five Questions with Michelle Hemstedt Author of The Essex Girl What inspired you to write ‘The Essex Girl’? I grew up in Witchfinder General country close to the Essex/Suffolk border. I went back to that part of the world…
The Essex Girl
The Essex Girl by Michelle Hemstedt I have told them she killed my daughter. I have told them she kissed her and gave her an apple, and the child perished. Laying that tiny body in the earth, I fancied there…
BackStory: Five Questions with Steve Campbell
BackStory: Five Questions with Steve Campbell Author of Senna Were there any interesting facts, details, or turns of phrase that didn’t quite make the final version of ‘Senna’? In an early draft of this flash, I split the narrative into…