EUTR – Summer Solitude

Welcome to the very first short story from my upcoming LGBT+ short story/advice collection, Everything Under The Rainbow! You can find out more about it on my Upcoming Releases page – just click here! Summer Solitude covers how important LGBT+ groups can be, specifically those in schools. Holidays can seem like lonely and isolating times for young LGBT+ people who aren’t out to their families, or who are facing difficult situations at home. Read on to find out how Charlie’s LGBT+ group tries to solve that problem in Summer Solitude!

The Smokers

With this poem, I’ve attempted to translate the everyday into something a little more poetic. Unusually (at least for me), I put a lot of effort into creating a rhythm for the words, rather than just letting the words flow and seeing how they end up. The first line swam through my head during a day in college with such a particular sound that I couldn’t help but be captivated by this normal yet morbidly beautiful idea. Thus, this poem was created. You can read it now!

Cliff

I’ve got a relatively short but poignant poem prepared for you today! Cliff takes the physical image of a cliff and twists it into a metaphor so that it stands for the self–in this case, my self. At only two stanzas long, it’s definitely not one of my more wordy pieces, but it was written at a fairly thoughtful time in my life and rereading it has conjured up those same emotions and thoughts I was experiencing then. It was interesting, at least, and I hope you find reading it just as interesting!

Packed In Boxes

In case it isn’t obvious from the title, this poem came about from me moving house–or, more specifically, me moving house with my boyfriend and his family. Lots of boxes. Lots of lifting. But also lots of memories of happy times together along with the promise of making more. Having a room called ‘ours’ filled with ‘our’ things is such a beautiful feeling, so I decided to capture the entire experience in this poem!

Tea

This poem was prompted by Potted Purple Mag’s seventh issue’s theme, ‘Culture’. It’s a pretty weird topic for me, and one that I’ve considered before in my writing, since I often find myself wondering what my culture actually is–what it means to be British, in other words. For this poem, my mind immediately went to the age-old stereotype: tea. But I wanted to transform it through personal memories which are unironically ‘tea-stained’, showing the people behind the hot drink which might as well be a meme at this point. So, here are my thoughts on tea; I hope you enjoy reading them!

Reborn Bloodlines Excerpt

Are you a fan of my first supernatural young adult novel, Twisted Bloodlines? Well, you might be excited to learn that I’m currently writing the sequel! I have three books (so, a trilogy) planned for the ‘Bloodlines series’ – Twisted Bloodlines, Reborn Bloodlines and Broken Bloodlines. Would you be interested in reading the first chapter of Reborn Bloodlines? Great! It’s waiting for you just below!

The True Meaning Of Halloween

As you may or may not know, I’m currently a creative writing intern at FOURALL Magazine, which is really fun and great for my short works productivity. I’m involved with creating creative pieces for the new issues–such as the special Halloween Issue which was released on 28th October. You can find it here! My piece in that issue was ‘The True Meaning Of Halloween’, a short flash fiction exploration of the idea that monsters can roam freely one night a year, pretending to be ordinary people dressed in Halloween costumes. It’s a spooky and fun read! Why not check it out below?

Cats Alone Excerpt

As you may know (if you’ve recently browsed my Upcoming Releases page), I’m currently writing the second edition of my first ever self-published book, Cats Alone. It’s a middle-grade fiction animal story, about family, unity and staying together through a crisis. A Tribe of cats are abandoned by their old owner, Joseph, and faithfully wait for him to come back, with plenty of hijinks, arguments and lessons learned along the way. Interested? Well, a little excerpt is available below, so read through and see if you’re excited for the release!

Wasted

To be completely honest, this poem was born from boredom. I was in class and, having finished my work, turned to a new page in my notebook and wrote down a few lines. Then a few more. Then a couple more, just for good measure. I ended up with a poem! Well, I ended up with three. Only one is here today, though, and that’s ‘Wasted’, a commentary on how adults view modern kids’ childhoods as useless and wasted, largely due to screen time and not going outside like in the ‘good old days’.