In one of my stories, “The Pink Teddy Bear” (Originally published in the award-winning collection, Once Upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties (under the title “Going for the Gold”) I came up with a character very much like so many men who watch sporting events while sitting in an easy chair drinking beer and eating fast…
Reading Notes
Came as Me, Left as We – Various Authors
‘Came as “Me”, Left as “We”‘ is aptly named considering this is the theme of most, but not all, of its 21 short stories. I found many within the collection to be evocative and moving, with a few bringing a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. Unfortunately, as is often the…
Writers on Writing – Deborah Sheldon (Noir Fiction)
Deborah Sheldon I’ve had many crime-related short stories published over the past few years. Some of them are included in Alfie Dog such as ‘Cash cow’ and ‘Basket trap’. Of all the crime fiction sub-genres, noir is my favourite to both read and write. Noir is not about solving the mystery, capturing the bad guy…
Writers on Writing – Henry Mitchell
My deepest debt as a tale-spinner is to story-telling neighbors who lived around me for a span of years along Ox Creek in Bull Gap, up in the Craggy Mountains above Asheville, North Carolina. Some of these bards were barely literate; some were better read than any professor who taught me at University. I have…
Author Profile – Carla Caruso
My younger sister shared a great quote with me the other day. You may have heard it before. “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” It’s so true. Little wonder we get such a shock when seemingly perfect Hollywood couples like Tom Cruise and Katie…
Lorraine Swoboda on (and in) The One Word Challenge Anthology
Give a roomful of writers a word, and tell them to come up with 40 lines of poetry or a complete story in 200 words. It’s like throwing a stone amongst a flock of birds in a field – they scatter far and wide into different genres, themes and styles. It’s amazing how huge one…
Author Profile – Jacqui Pack
When I wrote Promises and Obligations I had Cornwall in mind as its setting. We’ve taken many family holidays there over the years and surfing has always been an essential part of every trip so it seemed natural to combine the two in a story. Our most recent holiday was slightly different, though, as it…
Author Profile – Suzie Hindmarsh-Knights
When my opinion was sought in regard to a cruising holiday in Europe, my words were “I don’t want to spend twelve days on a boat suffering seasickness” as my mind flashed back to the many live-a-board SCUBA diving holidays, where I spent the entire time, while onboard, wanting to throw myself to the sharks…
Author Profile – Jeanne E. Tepper
I originally wrote Guide Dog for a short story contest. The premise was that the entrants were divided into groups and on a specific day each group would receive a genre and an object that had to be included in the story. It had to be maximum 1500 words and we had a week to write…
Writers on Writing – Patsy Collins – where do ideas come from?
The question I most frequently get asked as a writer is, “Where do you get your ideas from?” The answer is that they find me. For example, Treasure Hunt is the story of a works outing I attended – I simply replaced my colleagues with characters and added in a romance, plus a few other…
Welcome to Alfie Dog Bites
Welcome to Alfie Dog Bites, snippets of information for writers and readers. Over the coming weeks as well as bringing useful information for writers we hope to bring you profiles of some of our authors; introduce you to some of the things which inspire them and give you an insight into the world of fiction.…