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Literally Stories – Week 57 – The Facts

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Did you know that Henry J. Heinz introduced the marketing slogan ’57 varieties’ in 1896 and later claimed that he was inspired by an advertisement he saw while riding an elevated train in New York City for a shoe store boasting ’21 styles of shoe’.

Well there’s a coincidence, one that leads me to a very obvious conclusion: the Illuminati are up to their old tricks again pulling strings and doing other underhand things you can’t actually see, or get anyone to believe in, as they always insist on pouring cold water on the obvious connections you made whilst reading clearly connected articles on Wikipedia.

The facts are the facts plain and simple.

Week 57 on Literally Stories saw the 285th story published on the site. Fact. In the year 285 Diocetian defended the Danube from Sarmatian raids and what do you know, the Danube flows through Germany and that’s where (Bavaria) it all kicked off for those dastardly secret society types who love eating bratwurst with, you’ve guessed it — baked beans. Also fact.

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Literally Stories – Week 56 – A Tale of Two Emails

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*The names in this blog have been altered to protect the innocent — not the guilty.

Email One — 23 December 2015.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

In actual fact Twas the night before the night before Christmas, when an email landed in the Literally Stories inbox. Attached to the email a short story for our perusal.

Standard acknowledgement email is dispatched by yours truly.

All well and good.

Christmas came and Christmas went. New Year beckoned. New Year came and was soon spent and the story we received 23rd December continued to languish in our gmail account.

Forgotten. Unloved. Unread.

9 January 2016  — Email Two.

A standard rejection email is sent out to a much-loved LS published author, *Gertrude Ponsonby.

11 January 2016 — Email One

Email One is unearthed by the same buffoon who forgot to bring it to the attention of fellow Editors. Sincerest apologies email is duly dispatched to potential LS author patiently awaiting a reply:

Sorry *Engelbert — we somehow failed to flag up your story for reading… we will read it and get back to you very shortly.

12 January 2016 — Email One

Email is sent to the author of unloved, abandoned, forgotten story to tell them it is no longer unloved and will soon have a home at Literally Stories.

14 January 2016 — Email Two

A standard rejection email is sent out to the much-loved LS published author, *Gertrude Ponsonby; the same author who received the same email for the same story five days previously.

Oops!

Later that day

Much loved LS published author replies with typically pithy good humour:

Wow. You must really have a special hate for this thing. I’m used to rejection, but I don’t think I’ve ever had anything given the old heave-ho twice in one week. To be honest, I concur. The story sucks.
Regards
*Gertrude Ponsonby
~~~~~~~~

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Literally Stories – Week 55 – Allergens not in BOLD: strong language, dodgy humour.

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Hurrah!

Santa was back on form this year. He clearly read the message I left him, very carefully unlike last year when some incompetent stand-in or faux Mr. Claus totally f***** up.

Dear Santa I wrote — as you do — I would be most grateful if you could kindly arrange it that your elves assist you in the delivery of a number of…

Now conjure up a long list of ‘literary books’ by the likes of Orwell, Dostoevsky and other suitably heavyweight names including Albert Camus.

NB: To avoid severe embarrassment as once suffered by yours truly, please note that Mr. Camus was born in Algeria (then French Algeria) and his name is pronounced, not unsurprisingly for the French, Al-Bear Ca-Moo.

Not Al-But Ca-Mus.

Any road, as we say round these parts, you can imagine the puzzlement, nay sinking feeling that besieged me, when unwrapping many book-shaped packages I came across The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and did not subsequently discover The Outsider by said Algerian.

YA fiction is not, as you would no doubt hazard a guess, top of my must-read genre list, but to be fair to S.E.Hinton I read The Outsiders (published 1967), which was written by her when she was still in junior high school, and it is indeed a fine book of its type.

Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 55 – Allergens not in BOLD: strong language, dodgy humour.”

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Literally Stories – Week 53 – ‘The Penultimate Week’

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The Penultimate Truth is a novel by one of my favourite authors, Philip Kindred Dick (b. 1928 — d.1982).

Pee-Kay-Dee — as fellow D***heads call him — story, is set in a Post WW111 earth ravaged by nuclear weapons and based upon one of his countless short stories, namely, The Defenders (1953).

The novel was published in 1964 in what many regard as Dick’s Golden Era, which included The Man in the High Castle (1962) that won the Hugo Award for best novel in 1963.

Whilst The Penultimate Truth won’t feature too highly in devotees top ten lists, as it lacks the many-layered aspects of his best work, it is still a good book.

The World Jones Made (1956), Time Out of Joint (1959), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Ubik (both 1969), Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974) and A Scanner Darkly (1977) illustrate that throughout his life PKD continued to grow as a writer of original, philosophical fiction, albeit his latter years being increasingly devoted to an exploration of theological matters — most famously with Valis (1981).

Week 54 will herald the last round-up of stories published on LS in 2015.

We return 4 January 2016.

In honour of Phil I have dubbed Week 53 ‘The Penultimate Week.’

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Literally Stories – Week 52

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Well here it is, week 52. That must be a good twelve months but not if you multiply the four weeks that we have in a month with the twelve months that, was it, the Roman’s gave us? Oh and don’t start me about five week months. For anyone who is paid monthly then every four weeks ends up with thirteen pays a year. That will always sound good until you realise that there is no difference to your annual salary.

I suppose that week 52 should maybe be called week 54 as our anniversary on the 17th was mentioned two weeks ago on week 50 as the said anniversary was coming up the following week, which is of course a week behind as week one is at the end of the first week which is therefore read into week 2.

Now if anyone is left reading we come to a wee review of our stories this week. Before I go on I will swallow some Prozac. I can’t say for definite but I think dm gillis has given us our only Christmas story. Now don’t take that as an invitation to send any sentimental or sugary family friendly beigeness!! (A challenge folks… Come on give us something different. Give us something that makes us feel weird and uncomfortable. Let’s bomb out Christmas stories. Be inspired by those old black and white unsettling films that were so out of place on Christmas night but made us all feel alive.)

It is a privilege to continue publishing Tom Sheehan’s writing. Nik and myself have put ourselves out there again and we have a new person. A writer with a very different structure to his story. We welcome Adam Kluger.

We are working hard through the submissions this week and it is excellent to have so much interest but please don’t let up, keep submitting.

A last mention about the anthology. We are so happy to see some reviews being posted. Come on… You are all writers, send Amazon a review!

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Literally Stories – Week 51

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Before we begin I am sure that all of us here at Literally Stories wish to convey our deepest sympathies to the people of Paris. The unfolding story was more of a horror than anyone could ever write.

Our thoughts are with you all.

I sent for a copy of the anthology and was very happy to receive it this week. There is nothing better than the look, feel and smell of a new book, especially one that you have been involved with. I hope that all our writers, their families and friends ask the old boy with the white beard to bring them one in a few weeks time. (I refuse to mention that time of year without Prozac.) It is a privilege to champion the short story not only on a daily basis but now with something more concrete.

Our stories this week were another mixed bag. We had sadness from both our new writers, Sarah Walker and Ronald Friedman. Tom Sheehan put together a tale with a twist. Nik gave us a bit of future-thinking satire and I questioned acceptance.

We have had quite a few submissions from new writers this week and we are in the process of reading and deciding. So if you are reading this and thinking ‘Mmm, I wonder?’ Stop wondering and send! It is a pure delight for us to find someone who has that new writer enthusiasm!

Last two comments are reiterations… Happy Anniversary to the site in the past week. And of course a huge thanks to all of you for the past year!!

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Literally Stories – Week 50

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A year is a long time.  Well a good three hundred and sixty-four days.  If you don’t believe me multiply the seven days we have in a week with the fifty-two weeks in the year. Anyhow, I mention the year as that is the time that has passed since our first ‘Post’ was published.  I wonder if Jenny Morton Potts realises that she is now part of our history?

We have had a ball.  It hasn’t always been easy.  To be truthful the submission numbers have at times been a bit of a disappointment and sometimes a struggle.  We have always kept true to our initial ideals.  We have only published what we thought was either interesting, unique or edgy. If we got all three of those, we were delighted.  The writing always had to reach the standard that we insisted on.

So to all who we have published, to all the friends that we have made and to everyone who has submitted, we can’t thank you enough!!!  It has been a pure privilege.  We hope that you have enjoyed this past year and being a part of the site.

Now to The Anthology!

We are delighted to be associated with this. This book is a  representation of the versatility of the stories from the site.

I think all of us who have worked on this must thank Diane especially.  She has worked like a wee Trojan Beaver Bee.  Her knowledge and input has been invaluable. She has grafted away for days on this and as I say, we must all thank her for her patience, skill and professionalism.

We have posted a page on the dynamics of the charity and would like to thank ‘The Book Bus’ for it’s acceptance of our proceeds.  Believe it or not, it is sometimes difficult to give money away!!  We wish them every success and hope we raise some awareness and funds for them.  Please help with a few purchases. The links and information regarding how to buy a copy is at the end of this post.

Now onto our stories.  Myself and Diane have put ourselves out there again. Fred Foote and Des Kelly have contributed.  Please check out their stories this week and their back catalogue as they are two very versatile and skilled writers.  We have a newbie to the site. Karl McDermott is a master of the short sentence.  His witty story is worth a look and we are sure that he will also have a back catalogue soon.

I hope that on the 17th you all join me and my fellow editors and take a moment to pour out a huge drink of your choosing, look to the sky and toast the site that is Literally Stories.  We will then look to the heavens and toast each and every one of you!!!  Our respective Ambulance Services are on standby.

THE ANTHOLOGY: OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE:

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So, yes it’s been hard work and time-consuming because we wanted it to be as good as we could make it.  Out of respect for our wonderful authors and to ensure that anyone who buys this will feel that they have bought a well presented collection of short fiction.  We hope that you approve.  For those of you who have pre-ordered — thank you and for anyone else this will be available for purchase from all Amazon marketplaces on our Anniversary 15th November.   Get it for your Kindle, your phone, your computer, your cat — oh your cat doesn’t have an iPhone — No problem.  In response to several requests we decided to take the extra step and publish the book in Paperback and so you can also have a copy to hold in your hand.  As with the e-book the proceeds from sales go directly to The Book Bus.  So, if you want a happy cat order your copy either from Amazon or directly from Createspace it’s your choice .  We do hope you like it.

Huge thanks are due to Angela at studioanjou for making us a beautiful all round genuine cover.

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A final note — the book is also enrolled in the matchbook programme on Amazon so if you buy both you get a “deal” one for reading and one to brighten up your coffee table!!

What’s not to like?

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Literally Stories – Week 49

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This spot is usually done very professionally. There have been clever references, puns and a wonderful summary of the week’s stories. That won’t happen here. Not because the stories aren’t wonderful, of course they are…Well Thursday’s was a bit dodgy but there you go. It is just that Mr Saturday has taken some time off. After he reads this, it might only be for a week!!

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