She never calls you back: Think back – or go through your email and the call history on your mobile. Is it always you initiating contact? Is that contact sometimes (perhaps even mostly) met with a resounding silence, or a request that you go away and leave her alone? You’re blocked! Has she blocked you on all … Continue reading
No 200 words today! That’s because, instead, I’ve written a guest post/piece of short memoir about my time aboard the SS Ming Hua, as a guest post on Rebecca Jessen’s blog. To read about the pleasures of cruising the Pacific aboard this wonder of the 1980s, take a trip back in … Continue reading
Happy New Year! It’s 2015, and I couldn’t be gladder than I am to be welcoming in this fresh new year which, as my old companion Anne Shirley of Green Gables used to say, has no mistakes in it. Not that making mistakes is a problem. One of my favourite … Continue reading
This Christmas, I constructed a little house out of gingerbread. It had pink glass windows (raspberry flavoured boiled lollies), and snowy white icing. In Europe, baking gingerbread was once (in the 1600s) the province of those who belonged to the gingerbread baker’s guild, except at Christmas and Easter, when anyone … Continue reading
This piece is the second guest contribution from Maria Arena: you may have already read and delighted in her earlier piece Terminus Pty Ltd. Maria’s most recent book is a young adult horror novel, Sisterhood. You can find out more about Maria and her work by visiting her online. The dressing gown … Continue reading
This guest story in the 200 words/200 days series is brought to you by the inimitable, the awesome, the awe-inspiring Dr Sean Williams. I’m sure you already know who Sean is, but just in case you haven’t had the pleasure, Sean is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of over … Continue reading
Gibson Girl Florence Evelyn Nesbit was born on Christmas Day in either 1884 or 1886 (her mother sometimes concealed her date of birth in order to get around those pesky child labour laws, so her true year of birth has been forgotten), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During her lifetime, she was … Continue reading
When I was young I thought I understood everything. I thought I knew what pain was, and what to do with it, how to recover from it. I thought I knew what it would mean to bear a child, and raise them, and love them. I didn’t know enough to be frightened by … Continue reading
Eventually, someone you love will stop loving you. You can only imagine what will happen next. You will stand with your back against the wall in an empty room. Sliding down the wall. Sliding down until you are folded like a mirror of the letter N: your back a stem, your thighs a stroke, … Continue reading
The woman in the plane seat next to me looks uncomfortable. She has the kind of short, sparse hairstyle I associate with those receiving chemotherapy, or living in a concentration camp. I can see the paleness of her barely-protected scalp. She is wearing orthopaedic shoes and has a large, well-filled … Continue reading