>>> Spring Fiction Series



















































































>>> January Fiction Series














The Caregiver ● Rimma Kranet


My father’s caregiver knows how to build bombs... click here to read more








The Bear ● Joseph Ridgwell


The last time I saw Ronnie he had been in prison doing a seven stretch. Now he was out. We arranged to meet in a pub called the Bear in a small village in the wilds of Essex ... click here to read more








clumps ● James Bone


Perennially pyjamaed and bloated, Piss raises a glass to fallen heroes and sips his Bucky, wincing ... click here to read more








Montenegro ● Kik Lodge


You might say you still want to go to Montenegro, but I can hear it in your voice that only half your heart is in it. You say: “of course I still want to go to Montenegro, honey,” ... click here to read more








Haircuts ● Gerry Kelly


Matthew Murray was a barber who charged next to nothing because he still used blunt wartime clippers. He lived down Elswick Drive and had a very long back garden split into three large sections ... click here to read more








Champion Overlocker ● Frankie Gault


Ah faced ma cell windae an said ma wee prayer every morning. Did ah? DID-I-FUCK. What a fuckin waste of time. Canny remember the last time ... click here to read more








Translation ● Kiera Mitchell


The bookshop did not have a bell above the front door, unlike a lot of other small shops. I could see the door from the desk which I stood behind, whilst I slowly lost the feeling in my feet ... click here to read more








TOUR HECTIC ● Rory Allison


I did my morning meditation with the app and had breakfast and was already packed so I waited in the kitchen. I tried to stay away from the window because it sets me off and the neighbours ... click here to read more








The Man of Straw ● Robert Boucheron


The man of straw walks to stretch his legs, stiff from sitting so long. He has done his stint, a few hours at his desk with paper and pen. He may have spun straw into gold ... click here to read more








Libbe ● Gillian Shirreffs


Libbe moved into the old McGlackin place the summer before she died ... click here to read more








>>> Stories from 2020



A Passing Place ● Kenny Pieper


In the end he chose the grey, trench coat and the ill-fitting suit, clumsily ironed. He put on a tie he hadn’t seen in years. Never had reason to wear it ... click here to read more






Adrift ● Iain Bain


Tantalisingly close to shore, adrift and unable to disembark his single passenger, he knew that all control was now beyond him ... click here to read more












Eighties Comedian ● Neil Campbell


There were three lads did the picking and packing and one of them was this old lad called Ted, he’d been there about thirty five years, was a bit of a character, made the other two lads, Billy and Pete crack up laughing ... click here to read more






Friday Arvo in the Bourbon ● Joseph Ridgwell


Malia was sat in front of a poker machine - 100 pandas - inside the Bourbon and Beefsteak on Darlinghurst Street. She stuck a pineapple in the slot and commenced upon a losing streak ... click here to read more






The trick is to become invisible ● Hannah Sutherland


He nods and scribbles it onto the side of the cardboard cup, tells me to wait a few minutes. I nod, pleased at my deception ... click here to read more






After the Rain ● Helen Shimmield


You were always my favourite person. Even when you really weren’t ... click here to read more






378 ● Martin Geraghty


He bangs his fist on the door and whispers 378, don’t forget…378 ... click here to read more






55a Hollow Road ● Jason Jackson


Eddie and Leon are clearing the flat, because the woman died and they need to rent it out again ...click here to read more






Other People's Memories ● Annie Q. Syed


Even though bombs explode in my dreams, they don’t terrify me ... click here to read more






>>> Past Stories



Afternoon Tea ● Nathan Cullen


The hens picked and scratched in the mud of the garden. They clucked and fluttered at each other occasionally, the smaller chickens making way ... click here to read more






Soap ● Kavan P. Stafford


He washed his hands when he got inside the bookie’s. The past few days it was the first thing he did, before he even glanced at the papers ... click here to read more






Inside This Standing Stone ● Amy B. Moreno


They’re talking on the bench beside me; three crows trussed up in white tunics, either not caring or not remembering that I understand everything they say ... click here to read more






Faces ● Taylor Burns


He’d gashed his face with a Stanley blade and couldn’t see. He’d given no thought to his eyes and scored canyons all the way down his skull without stopping ... click here to read more






Limitations of Mortality ● Bernard Pearson


Death let’s face it is a dying art, it has never been quite the same since the industrial revolution, prior to which it was something one did in families, or with a group of friends in a plague village ... click here to read more






My Heart is Full of Hope ● Matthew David Scott


The three of them sit in a non-descript saloon car on the opposite side of the road ... click here to read more






In the Red ● Sheena Oo


Sungai Petani? We come from the same home town ... click here to read more






The Pusher ● Martin Geraghty


Am the heartbeat ae this city. The main artery. The holdin cell. Yae wir probly preoccupied wi mer important matters wen wae met. A wiz watchin yae. ... click here to read more






Dublin Symphony ● David Butler


Some time ago I must have scratched these three lines up on the back of the door I think they’re out of John of the Cross though I’d be hard pressed now to say when I might have done it or what I might have had in mind ... click here to read more






Shug ● Rachael Fulton


5a.m., up to tend the sheep every day in a boiler suit of his father’s he’d never filled out. You’ve yer mither’s build he was told since the cradle Nae use ... click here to read more






The Leech ● Samina Chaudhry


Sixteen years is a long time now that I think of it. For me it wasn’t a leech at that time, it was God’s creature just like me. The first time I saw it on the kitchen floor I left it thinking I’d throw it out in the morning ... click here to read more






Three Stories ● Costas Despiniadis


A selection of three fragment stories from the collection 'Nights Smelling of Death' ... click here to read more








The Echoes ● Ranbir Sidhu


... she didn’t know why Ralph was making such a fuss, it wasn’t like she was shooting junk into her veins, which was all the rage, by the way, not like she hadn’t thought about doing that ... click here to read more








The Good Stuff ● Rodge Glass


Since the food arrived, I’ve been trying to get him to smile. I tell the best joke I can think of ... click here to read more








Ordinary Clouds ● Ruskin Smith


It was meant to be a demo, or a counter-demo possibly, but there was hardly anybody here. Lance hung back from a distance watching. Maybe this was just a meeting-up beforehand ... click here to read more








The Secret Life of Jonny Hayes ● Gavin O'Hea


When he first arrives from Aberdeen during the summer transfer window of 2017, Jonny Hayes tells the press that Celtic is his boyhood club and he’s ready to do whatever it takes to secure his place in the squad ... click here to read more








The Homecoming ● Kirsty McGrory


It’s just after five when we get off the bus. I’m concerned I might have left my shoes or my fascinator or something important in his flat, but he assures me I haven’t - I triple checked our bags before we left Edinburgh ... click here to read more








Middle Eight ● Mark Blair


Despite other intentions he awakes on the floor again. Briefly the eyes open, but only for a moment; just enough to know that it’s the same day just happening again ... click here to read more








Take Me into the Woods and Leave Me There
● Paul Shacksmyth


Peter has left work early again. He just up and went so he could make the 3:40 train to Liverpool Central. His boss noticed him leaving but said nothing ... click here to read more








Three Stories ● Brendan Breslin


Most mornings, I brush my teeth with a razor and shave my face with a toothbrush ... click here to read more








HERO ● Ely Percy


Wully McCoy’s a hero. Some lassie in his Craft An Daft class went an chopped her finger aff by accident the other day an it wis cause ae Wully that she managed tae get it sewed back on ... click here to read more








The Blue Caravan ● Derek McLuckie


He was away with his Gran and Gramp at the caravan. The caravan was pale blue, the same kind of pale blue as Jesus’ robe in the picture in his big children’s bible ... click here to read more








Everyone on my mantelpiece is dead ● Kirsten Anderson


I met him in the street when he asked me what day it was. The light nights confused him, he said. He had gone for a nap and woke up thinking it was tomorrow ... click here to read more








Three Stories ● Aimee Campbell


For the past few days at work there’s been an infestation of mites. At first we thought they were termites until someone googled and found that no, it was actually clover mites ... click here to read more








Benny and Sandra ● Frankie Gault


Sandra brought a cup of tea intae the livin room. Pulling a wee table from a nest of three, she put it in front of Benny, smiled and said How ye feel noo? ... click here to read more








Deid? ● Ross Wilson


Ah dunno likes. Ah heard thum speakin last night, the nurses like. Nae pulse, they said. Nae pulse, he’s deid. Fuckin deid? Ah dunno, seems hard tae take in ... click here to read more








Furr ● Kris O'Rourke


The party is over. Teddy and I are drinking in the kitchen to stave off the shakes; he has a guitar. He is playing all the greats: Dylan and Townes Van Zandt and Warren Zevon. Suzanne disappeared some time ago ... click here to read more








Duck Feet ● Ely Percy


Ma da’s got bad feet. He says it’s cause when he wis wee his mother made him wear shoes that didnae fit him ... click here to read more








The Hour Passed Like A River ● Neil Campbell


You went in at lunchtime with the lads. Played darts and had a few pints. The cricket was on TV. Orange buses went past the window ... click here to read more








Holy buttons, sad but dignified ● Bechaela Walker


She sat at the full-length streaky café window overlooking the carpark and thought of how empty the train had been—how did they keep running such services? ... click here to read more








Jamie ● Jim Gibson


There’s no one else to talk to so I might as well make the most of it. It’s a horrible thought but I can’t help thinking that his life is sort of like an animal’s, you know? ... click here to read more








The guy in the library ● Evy Tam Liu


It was as unexpected and brief as the appearance of the sun that day; that sun that shone in through the windows and skylights of the library café as we spoke. A day that had started out dark and cold, the wind and rain falling, hurrying me along from my flat to begin a long day of study ... click here to read more








Spilled Milk ● Victoria Briggs


I’d been working all summer as the receptionist in a corporate art gallery in Midtown. While I knew next to nothing about art, neither did the clientele – that’s why they bought their office wall fillers from us and not some gallery with exposed pipework over in Brooklyn ... click here to read more








Communique II ● Joey Simons


A hundred years ago today, our esteemed authority, Francis Thornton Barrett, Chief Librarian of the Mitchell Library, was cremated in Glasgow amidst riot and insurrection. That his centenary be celebrated in similar fashion, with explosives planted in the heart of Collegelands, is but a modest objective in the great battle the lies ahead; not, this time, for the spoils of war or mere economics, but for the preservation of knowledge itself ... click here to read more








Spark in the Night ● Sean Adams


The two boys were flinging stones at the rats behind the Dolphin Takeaway. It was late, too late for Gary at least, but the earful he'd get when he returned home would at least add a bit of drama to the night. The rats had been there for a few weeks now. They'd appeared out of nowhere ... click here to read more








A Real Rain ● Ian Farnes


The Scottish voice is reassuring and trustworthy. Studies show as much. There are a lot of call-centres in Glasgow. The one I work in is next to the Mitchell – Europe’s biggest public library. I cross over the bridge at Charing Cross at least four times every workday, going between where I work and the library ... click here to read more