Our Fiction

Winterland. By Eddie Willson [excerpt]
'What I can't get over with Dan, I see him in Sainsburys the Thursday before and he seemed really chipper,' Steve said.
They met each other in the cereal aisle. Danny was looking for washing powder. He had a moan about the way they kept moving stuff around in the store. Steve took up the subject. He started on about how it was all a management scam. 'It's supposed to make you lose your way looking for what you want, so you end up getting a load of other crap as well.'
Danny stood there with his pisstaking, 'paying attention', face on. He stopped stroking his chin and gestured at the cornflakes, 'I know. It's terrible. I remember when it was all bread round here.' Read more

THE STAR by Sue Gardner
Sharon spat on her handkerchief and rubbed it over Michael's face.
Michael screwed up his eyes. 'Mum!' he whined. 'I already washed!'
'You still have spaghetti sauce round your mouth.' Sharon carried on wiping. 'We can't have you looking like a dirty little urchin. We've gotta have you making the best impression. You don't want the judges looking at you and thinking, "Who is this dirty little boy who can't even wash his own face?" Pride, Michael. You gotta have pride in yourself. Else you won't get anywhere in life. Now where's your jacket? Let me look at you� stand up straight...shoulders back...head up. Now don't you look the part!' Read more

Bronwerdd
by Imogen Rhia Herrad

I think I may have made a mistake.
She is looking at me oddly, and she has been asking me some strange questions.
Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't done it, I can see that; but there's not much I can do now.
She's gone out. I don't know where she is. The house is chilly and silent.
I don't think I knew what I was doing at the time and I wouldn't ever have thought that it would come off. I think I must have been a bit drunk, on the wine and the summer heat and the moon.
I'd been longing for a companion. Well, not longing. Wishing. I think the move had unsettled me, and the new job. Being made head chef, just like that, when I'd never expected it. In that big old castle too - somebody told me the foundations went right back to the Middle Ages. And the cellars. The wine cellar.
That's what started it, those old bottles of wine. I know wine couldn't really be that old, but I wonder about those dusty bottles we found right at the back. When I went home that night I took one of them with me, just to taste. Read more

Gaia Sings
by Gaie Sebold

She was one beautiful bird, that ship. I could see her on one of the monitors. I'd been in on the design from the ground up, of course, but there's a hell of a difference between schematics and the real thing. She looked as though she was floating even though she was still on the ground. Smooth as an egg and just as full of potential. The Phoenix. There were others, of course, all round the world, but I knew mine was the best. I just knew.
I couldn't wait to get on board. The air was as good as it got, scrubbed and recycled and just the right temperature, but it still felt hot and full of the smell of sweat. My uniform collar was pressing into my throat. Military uniforms. That's one thing that never changes. They still manage to rub you just enough to be annoying without really interfering with the function. Read more