Whenever a recipe calls for bay leaves, I can’t help but think of Irena. From the simmering warmth of my winter kitchen, I’m transported to the Adriatic in high summer.
You see, I have them still, the bay leaves she …
I pulled up to the front of Dwight’s home and some guy in a tuxedo said he’d park my car. I put the welder’s goggles over my eyes, donned my hardhat and walked through the great mahogany doors into the foyer. Dwight …
Rhoda Honeycutt had been saving herself for anyone. She daydreamed of love and buried herself in worn-out copies of True Romance passed from one set of desperate hands to another. At school Billy’s crowd passed by her as if she …
Back then, back when he was just a gangly kid and before he became an artist, I felt I had a job to do – teach my son to be better at sports than I ever was. I’d been a …
There’s a picture of me at three cutting my hair with kitchen shears hoping to look like my two brothers, leaving me with stubby hair bordered by bald spots, leading to haircuts for all my dolls. I paraded their shorn …
What if I hadn’t drifted over to Melbourne on a whim, to hook up with Jim, that permaculture expert I snogged at a random party, on a random evening, in an as yet ungentrified area of London way back in …
Prakash scuffs his white and blue striped Adidas against the gravel path. Self-own, he’ll have to wear them like that until he saves up again. But the noise is smoothing over the grinding of his jaw. No-one listens.
There’s a …
Trevor read the ad:
Announcing the Walter P. Hodgkins Literary Contest.
Submissions are now being accepted for The Walter P. Hodgkins Literary Contest until September 1st. Please submit an original short story of not more than 1000 words …
Finished my life story. Got to the end and cried.
Henry Bladon is a writer of short fiction and poetry based in Somerset in the UK. He has degrees in psychology and mental health policy and a PhD in literature …