Beautiful Souls Create Beautiful Worlds

I’ve been avoiding following the recent news from the US too closely – perhaps feeling that there’s enough similar stuff going on here in the UK. But this post absolutely sums it all up.

Tipsy Typer

She was 32 years old, her favorite color was purple. She was a waitress and a paralegal. She lived in an apartment with her chihuahua, Violet. She loved people and wanted the best for everyone she encountered. She felt the world so deeply that any story of hate or oppression could bring her to tears. She stood up for the things that she believed in. And because of this, she was killed- one week ago today the world lost a beautiful soul to the hands of hate. Her name was Heather Heyer; she was murdered when a car intentionally plunged into a crowd of counter-protestors who were ensuring that their own voices would drown out the hate spewing from the white supremacists who had charged into Charlottesville.

I didn’t know her, but I’ve known countless like her. Her death strikes a deep chord with me because she could have easily…

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Poetry: Wilfred Owen

I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the Burying Party, the forthcoming Wilfred Owen film, and I think this post from LitGaz really sums up why Owen’s poetry is so worth remembering.

LIT.GAZ.

Perhaps one is pre-disposed to warm to Wilfred Owen‘s poetry by his own tragic story: killed in action a mere week before the Armistice (but then, when you get to thinking about this, it is even crueller to realise that someone had to be the last person killed) and his parents receiving the telegram a week later, whilst everyone around finally celebrated the end…

Owen’s poetry has survived, and will, for a number of reasons. He writes about war in ways which others – equally effectively – do not: his best poems, it has always seemed to me, are especially powerful because they personalise the dreadfulness of war by zeroing in on a single individual and his fate: the blinded soldier in The Sentry, the dying man in Dulce et Decorum Est, or, most powerfully for me, the survivor in Disabled. When he focuses in close-up on…

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The Intelligent American

I enjoyed this so much I thought it was worth a reblog. Great example of using dialogue to show not tell!

Flash-365

Q asked me to a drink.

“You can meet my American friends,” he told me.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said, excited, “they are from Portland.”

“Oh.”

Q is already there when I arrive, a place not far from my apartment that serves only alcoholic cider.

His American friends turn out to be one guy and his absent girlfriend.

“She got sick off some vegan shawarma,” he tells us from under a mustache.

The ciders come; two Russian, one from the south of France.

“So, what are you doing in Russia?” The American asks.

I shrug. “A few things here and there.”

He nods. “Yeah, I am a teacher too. It’s really great, you know–rewarding.”

“Mhm.”

“So, why’d you pick Russia?”

“Dunno,” I say.

“Rad. Yeah–I love it here man. The culture is fascinating and so beautiful. Rich–you know, like, rich-rich. It’s so old and just–” he takes a breath, “just amazing…

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Six Word Story Challenge: Fantasy

Escaping reality's nightmare, into happy dreams. Written for the Six Word Story Challenge over at Sometimes Stellar Storyteller.

Song Lyric Sunday: Brilliant Disguise

This week's prompt for Song Lyric Sunday was to come up with a song about lies or liars, giving me the opportunity to prove, yet again, that there's a Bruce Springsteen song for every occasion. Here's Brilliant Disguise, from the 1987 album Tunnel of Love, which is frankly, brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r5xqiBl-Vs The lyrics, conveniently, are in …

Six Word Story: Guess the Movie

The Six Word Story Challenge has gone to the movies this week: can you summarise your favourite film in just six words? Here's my effort. Sisters resolve icy problem. Men superfluous. No prizes for guessing this one!

Twittering Tale #43: Her first tattoo

    At your age? her kids smirked. Her husband was furious: What have you done? Of all the trashy… I’m disgusted. She grinned. The desired effect. (140 characters) A story about a tattoo and a mid-life crisis for Kat's Twittering Tales challenge.

Honey

This is lovely. I follow a lot of bloggers but Chris Nicholas is easily the most talented. Follow him. You won’t be disappointed.

The Renegade Press

A wise man once said that patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. I always believed that I understood what he meant. I thought that he spoke of suffering; that one must sacrifice so that he may eventually prosper. I told myself that I wanted to be a writer, and that the yearning in my chest was the pain I had to endure in order to succeed. Because of this, I spent years fighting against a loneliness so encompassing that I could feel it in my bones. Then I met you. And I realised that I was wrong. It took my twenty-eight years to understand that the hole in my chest was the bitterness of waiting to meet someone who could take my breath away; and that there is no fruit as sweet as falling for a woman as beautiful as you.

It started with a photograph. Until then…

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