Our Aim We are aiming to promote both creative writing and the performing of this work for writers in the north of Ireland. Competiton Rules Theme: Life on Our North Coast  Closing date for Submissions: August 31st, 2023 Accepting places: The successful writers will be contacted via their email account on or around the 30th September. There will be a limited amount of time to reply to accept your place before the spot will be offered to one of the runner-up entry’s. Submissions: Writers may submit one entry each, this may be either Prose or Poetry. Each Prose piece must … Continue reading SOUNDWAVES – A competition for writers in Northern Ireland

In Memoriam A great Editor, A wonderful writer yet an even more wonderful human being.  LISA Lisa was looking out the window, staring at the placid gray lake, at the small boats slowly crisscrossing it.  I was focused on her every movement, or lack of it. We didn’t talk, not about what either of us thought at that moment, or of any moment preceding it or of anything to come. She was motionless except for the occasional blinking of her eyes, the sudden expansion and deflation of her chest, and the slightest shifting of a strand of her red hair, … Continue reading Steve Carr

Hedy Habra is a poet, artist and essayist. She is the author of three poetry collections from Press 53, most recently, The Taste of the Earth (2019), Winner of the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award; Tea in Heliopolis Winner of the Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes, which was a Finalist for the Best Book Award and the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. A seventeen-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of … Continue reading Hedy Habra

R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and novelist. He has published four books of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts and Ball On The Mound. In addition, he has published four novels: Getting Lucky (The Story), Memphis Masquerade, Seventh Sense and Ghost Girl.  Vulnerable Vicissitude I see love through swollen eyes. There is no way to take a measurement of pain. Floating clouds bring sleet stinging rain. My innocence exposed like the raw nerve ends of a concrete fall. I placed no guard on the concept of infatuated betrayal. It hits hard like a staggering concussion. … Continue reading R. Gerry Fabian

Tim Law is an author of fantasy, horror, detective and general short story fiction as well as the occasional poem or two. He heralds from a little town in Southern Australia called Murray Bridge. A happily married father of three children (plus four cats and a rabbit), family is very important to him. Currently working at the Murray Bridge Library in the role of Library Manager he has dreamed since his early high school years of becoming a full-time author. Working for a library, surrounded by so many wonderful authors it is difficult not to be inspired to write. Tim … Continue reading Tim Law

Ben Hramiak is an author with a Bachelor’s Honours in English Literature and Creative Writing living and working in Yorkshire. He has written prose fiction from an early and has been published in Young Writers’ Tales from the Crypt, a 2016 short horror anthology. He was also published on one website for his poetry submission and has even started a blog. He is currently writing a historical fiction novel set in feudal Japan. The Spider and the Moths The Jerries don’t see us. Crouched low, the brown of my jacket blending with the mud, I stalk forward, rifle at the … Continue reading Ben Hramiak

Alan Catlin has several new books in the works including a long series of noir movie poems concluding with three chapbooks in one book under the title Exterminating Angels from Kelsay for mid-year 2022. he also has two chapbooks coming soon as well: Satan’s Kiss from Gutter Snob ad Dream Rider from Orchard Street Press. Flashdancer “She’s a maniac a maniac and she’s dancing like she never danced before….” She was one of those girls who maintained their body mass index near zero on a strict diet of Cocoa Puffs and methamphetamines. Could be heard as the wailing banshee voice … Continue reading Alan Catlin

Matthew Tree was born at the tail end of 1958 in London. He moved to Barcelona in 1984, having taught himself Catalan. He has written and published 14 books in this language with mainstream publishers. In 2006, he started to write in his mother tongue again, in which language he has published a collection of articles (‘Barcelona, Catalonia. A View From The Inside’) and two novels (‘SNUG’ and ‘If Only’). Just Looking (Extract) I’d forgotten that that night was the cruise ship’s Gala Evening, during which everybody was supposed to converge on the Supreme Eatery – an immense dining area … Continue reading Matthew Tree

Josh Crummer is a poet from Zilwaukee, Michigan. His debut poetry collection, We Are the Raiders, released January 2022. He is currently at work on his second collection, and when he’s not working as a corporate writer by day, he’s teaching college composition at night. Dinosaurs Won’t Die They all survived after the meteor struck – all the stegosaurs, tyrannosaurs, long necks and bone heads transformed to oil and ossified treasure before eons of dirt nap. Fueled by gasoline, our magic lamps weren’t rubbed but pressed by pedals, then a rumble – a belch of exhaust – dinosaur genies invisible but … Continue reading Josh Crummer