ON MYTHS AND MEANING Books lead to other books. Read one and you’re reminded of another. New publications refer to past ones, famous and obscure. Genres cross over, involving similar concepts, tropes, devices. Writers lift, pay tribute, re-imagine, claim as their own and take it a step further in their effort to tell gripping, original stories. Pick up the trail and we end up making extraordinary connections. Welcome to Connection Degree Three … The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri; Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor; Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk: three mesmerizing tales on the spells and myths and faith mechanisms that … Continue reading Connection Degree Three – Mar 2020

Name – Nicolas D. Sampson Place of birth – Cyprus 4 Bums on a Rugby Goalpost Why do you write? It’s part of my job. I write for publication, and I’m also a screenwriter. I love the process of writing, hard as it may be. To have written is phenomenal, but so is writing – something like therapy and emotional fitness in one go. What do you write about? I started with epistolary fiction and nonfiction think-pieces before moving on to hybrid literary prose. I also write genre and prose-poetry. I love human behavior as related to politics, group dynamics, … Continue reading An interview with Nicolas D. Sampson

Published by Fly on the Wall Press 2020 If this book was to dance you would without doubt see the tightened sinews of a graceful mover, the years of training and precision abundantly clear. As you watched this dancer flow across the floor effortlessly telling their story you’d see the strength that can be made from something as soft as silk. But if you looked just a little closer, took your gaze from off the beauty and the craft there is a deep sense of sadness behind those eyes. It is through these eyes that Attracta Fahy is not afraid … Continue reading Dinner in the Fields by Attracta Fahy

My Magical Metaphorical Mould The story which is about to unfold is of a shape-shifting magical metaphorical mould Which mentally makes misshapen me improve a millionfold! Being birthed biologically by my mentally misshapen Mother meant me being in bad shape so from my harmful history I longed to be set free. I needed mould Mother’s to transform me by birthing me in good shape and so escape a far from gentle genetic geometry. If not my malfunctioning Mum then which women to get the geometrical job done would be best to make my metamorphosis manifest? What wonderful women would lead Ruth to the truth so I could be the best me I can be and fly free from negativity’s nest? What would be the right angle from which to reshape Ruthie’s troubling triangle of me, positivity and negativity to leave only the delightful duo of positivity and me making what was a terrible triangular trio a 2-pronged V for victory? … Continue reading The incredibly talented Ruthie Adamson AKA the Wonky Wordsmith has this offering to celebrate International Women’s Day.

‘An Accident of Blood’ by Charlie Brice WordTech Editions May 2019 An Accident of Blood is not a book of poetry, well it is, but this is something far more. I have often said that good writing is getting the right words in the right order. Good poetry is putting the best words in the best order. This is not only the best words but the poems themselves are organised and arranged in such a way that it becomes more of a memoir, each poem telling the story a little more, each time a little fuller than before. Characters come … Continue reading An Accident of Blood

Name:  Charlie Brice           Resident of:  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA Place of birth:  Cheyenne, Wyoming USA 4 bums on a rugby goalpost! Why do you write?– I have an urge to make the invisible visible, to articulate in a poem something that celebrates complexity rather than a reduction to simplicity. When I was a psychoanalyst I often recommended poems to my patients because they could name the nameless feelings they were experiencing, feelings too complex for our reductive labels. It’s also true that I write because I enjoy it so much. It’s fun for me and I love every part of the … Continue reading An interview with Charlie Brice

ON ONESELF – by Nicolas D. Sampson Books lead to other books. Read one and you’re reminded of another. New publications refer to past ones, famous and obscure. Genres cross over, involving similar concepts, tropes, devices. Writers lift, pay tribute, re-imagine, claim as their own and take it a step further in their effort to tell gripping, original stories. Pick up the trail and we end up making extraordinary connections. Welcome to Connection Degree Three … What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami; White Noise by Don DeLillo; Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky: three mind-bending … Continue reading Connection Degree Three – Feb 2020

Stephen McQuiggan was the original author of the bible; he vowed never to write again after the publishers removed the dinosaurs and the spectacular alien abduction ending from the final edit. His other, lesser known, novels are A Pig’s View Of Heaven and Trip A Dwarf. OPEN 7 DAYS TIL MIDNIGHT. Shaw awoke drenched in that all too familiar feeling – it was going to be a slut of a day. He checked his emails and they were the usual round of petty squabbles and cancelled orders. There was no hot water. He stubbed his toe, shouting the anesthetising ‘Fuck!’ so loudly he … Continue reading Stephen McQuiggan

Kate Ennals is a prize-winning poet and writer and has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals (Crannog, Skylight 47, Honest Ulsterman, The Moth, Anomaly, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries, North West Words, The Blue Nib, Dodging the Rain, The Ogham Stone, plus).In 2017, she won the Westport Arts Festival Poetry Competition. Her first collection of poetry At The Edge was published in 2015. Her second collection, Threads, was published in April 2018. She has lived in Ireland for 25 years and currently runs poetry and writing workshops in County Cavan. Kateruns At … Continue reading Kate Ennals

Mark Tarren is a poet and writer who lives on remote Norfolk Island in the South Pacific. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various literary journals including The New Verse News, The Blue Nib, Poets Reading The News, Street Light Press, Spillwords Press, Tuck Magazine and Impspired Magazine. He is currently working on a collection of poetry and a novel. Clouds Hill      for T.E. Lawrence When did things fall away from beneath your hand? Was it when love fell deeply from your brow towards the brass heaven?   When all things intimate were lost, cast away in your gold. … Continue reading Mark Tarren