Dear Reader

Dear Reader, I have always been afraid of the dark, I don't recall a time as a child when I wasn't afraid to lie in bed in the darkness of night without the comfort of a light in the hallway. I suppose it must have arisen somewhere at some point but I don't have any memory of it. Stephen King once wrote "The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle." I'm sure that, at some point, dear readers, that you have too been scared of something lurking in the dark corner of your room even though it makes no logical sense. But I think at that time in the night, logic doesn't tend to come into the equation.  I wrote this story piece about a year ago, maybe it will resonate with you or maybe you're lucky enough to never have been scared of the dark. But either way, I hope you like giving it a read.  Dar...

Dear Reader, One of the books I’m reading at the moment is ‘Stephen King; On Writing’ and he writes a piece about how sometimes you have parts of a story and you just can’t quite make them work. He calls it the ‘teacup and the handle’, you can’t have a teacup without a handle nor is a handle any use without a teacup. I attempt to write short stories, dear reader, and I often come up with teacups with no handles or handles without the teacup. Bits of stories that you just can’t make work or can’t figure out which direction they’re supposed to go in and so just come to a halt. I can’t tell you that my short stories are good nor can I tell you that they’re awful because to be honest, I’m not sure I know. Can any writer turn around and honestly say that they think one particular piece of work is truly awesome? I have no idea whether my writing is any good at all. I really need to give my old English teacher, Mrs Mack, a call and get her to pop round for a cup of tea and a good...