For Children: Dopey’s New Diet; Elfink and the Baked Bean; Jimmy the Dreamcatcher; River Lad; Snowy’s Big Adventure; The Cat with Orange Eyes; The Goblin King and the Pig; The Kettle Who Lost His Whistle; Grump-Grump the Tummabump; Pink Slippers; The Mer Fairy Princess; The Garden Gnome and The Three Gold Coins; The Tree Fairy; Megarabbit; Santa's Mince Pies; Henry the Dust Ghost; Pink Crab.
For Adults: A Hoovered Life; An Teallach; Beijing Panda; Blind Dates; Cissy; Delayed; Flatpack Wife; Frog Therapy; Hawai’i; Highland Fling; Hit and Run; In the Heat of the Desert; It’s My Work!; Kangaroo Dreaming; Kidnap; Miriam; More Fish?; No Tears; Old Annie and her Last Chicken; Panty-Line; Paradise Lost; The Helmsman; Singularly Beautiful; Ryanair Aphrodite; Statue; The Angel of Death; The Blue Rose Bush; The Cat Who Snored; The Christmas Dance; The Eighty Thousand Year Reunion; The Fiftieth Audi; The Gap; The Girl on the Bench; The Girl on the Bus; The Greedy Jewel Thief of Poggibonsi; That Holiday in Tuscany; The Helmsman; Helpline for Phobias; The Hole; The Invisible Curtain; The Lady on the Train; The Lake; The Last Patient; The Last Ski Station; T.T.T.; The Letter; The Meal; The Old Man in the Park; The Piano; The Pringle Sisters; The Rain in Spain; The Recorder Player; The Red Chevy; The Skylark; The Shrine; The Soul Sweeper; The Tepee; The Tower of Truth; The Two-legged Dear; The Urn; The Visitor; The Voice; The Water Girl; The Wave; There is Life on Mars!; There on Time; Thomas the Rhymer; The Baker's Novel; Whispers in the Wind; The Wheel; Whispers of Death; The Ravine; The Old Grandmother; Manga Wedding; The Badger Set; Marcel's Head; The Island; Automatic Door; Three Gifts, Three Chances; Last Dance; All Because of a Girl Called Hayley; Whatever Happened to Harry Plant?; Two Saucers of Fire; The Canvas Bag; Aunt Daphne's Dolls
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From: The Goblin King and the Pig:
‘In the hollow below, a large fire was ablaze, and a crowd of hideous goblins danced around the fire, whooping and brandishing spears. A particularly fat goblin, dressed in splendid gold and purple finery, sat on a stone throne watching the spectacle, his face stretched into an evil grin. But it was the vision of the girl tied to a tree that held the pig-boy transfixed. Long, wavy black hair to her waist, a small crown of colourful flowers on her head, he’d never imagined anyone could be so beautiful. But her silvery dress was in tatters, and her glistening wings drooped. Her screams cut him to the quick, and, snorting and squealing with fury he capered down the hill, scattering the dancing goblins asunder.’
(Published in New Fairy Tales 28th Feb, 2009, downloadable free from www.newfairytales.co.uk, voluntary contributions to Derian House Children’s Hospice, Chorley, Lancs.)
From: Miriam: ‘Miriam was different. How and why was of little importance. She was different, and that was enough for her peers at school to use the girl as target practice for their jibes and their cat-spit cruelty. Not a day went by when Miriam wasn’t surrounded by that circle of hormone-laden adolescent girls hell-bent on making her existence at school a total nightmare. It was all verbal, of course. Not once did anyone actually lay a finger on Miriam, but those girls’ words were razor sharp. They had no need for physical violence.’
(In Love is in the Air anthology (joint first prize winner), 2009, ed. John Riddle, Cormorant Publishing, ISBN 10, 1906905002, Available from Amazon U.K. £9.99)
From: The Rain in Spain: ‘I remember running from the silence of the village to the silence of the fields; a small child running for help, running away from what he’d seen in the village. I remember stopping in the fields, held back by the smell of death. It’s still there, that smell, etched indelibly into my nostrils and it came with the rain that fell during the night seeping up from the sodden, bloodied ground ...
“Alfonso, say Hola to the man!”
Mama came out from behind the bar, the evening before, to shake hands with the gaunt young man with wild red hair who’d recently arrived in our village.
“His name’s Jock and he’s from Scotland. He’s come to help us beat the fascists.”’
(In The Rainy Days Paperback, 2008, Raine Publishing, www.secretattic.com)
