Stories for Homes: Update

Just in time for Christmas, Stories for Homes has been released in paperback. As I wrote in a previous post, the anthology was put together to raise funds for the housing charity Shelter, and features the work of sixty-three authors, all responding to the theme of 'home'.

I am fortunate enough to be one of those authors, and my short story, Unsettled, is a re-imagining of a well-known fairy tale:   

She needs to cut [the branches] back, trim all of the trees that are creeping up on her house. In the early days, the young men used to help her, grumbling all the while about the decision to move so far in. It had been wise at the time: everyone had been running from something, everyone wanted to lose themselves between the branches. It wasn’t until they had built up the little settlement that they realised they weren’t the only ones hiding in the forest.

Both the Stories for Homes paperback and ebook are now available from Amazon (and would make excellent Christmas presents!) All royalties raised go directly to Shelter.

Leaflet by Debs Riccio

An Advent of Stories

Whoever invented the modern advent calendar (I suspect those clever, Christmas-loving Germans) was onto a good thing. Whoever invented the chocolate advent calendar was onto an even better one. And now, the folk at 5 Minute Fiction have come up with an idea that's just as sweet: an advent of Christmas stories.

I've actually been thinking a lot about Christmas fiction recently. I think it's a lovely tradition, obviously made popular by Charles Dickens among others, and it's rather a shame there isn't more about at this time of year anymore. I had a couple of ideas for longer festive pieces, which I hope to write one day, but when I saw this competition - to pen a Christmas-themed flash fiction, the best of which would be displayed on the 5 Minute Fiction website during the countdown to Christmas - I decided to have a go with a completely new idea.

I can't really say too much about it, as it's pretty short and I'm a spoilerphobe. But I was really pleased that 5 Minute Fiction named me runner up in this competition and my story, The Visitor, is now available on their website here.

Merry Christmas!