Eggplant.place

113d

Dorothy K Haynes – Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch

Five supernatural and unsettling short stories from Dorothy K. Haynes’ award-winning collection first published in 1949. Produced by David Jackson Young and first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2004.

@bookstodon

https://archive.org/details/bbc-radio-dorothy-k-haynes/BBC+Dorothy+K+Haynes+2004-12-xx+1+Gas.flac

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #horror #weird #weirdfiction #weirdtales #audio #audiobooks #shortstories

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169d

WRITERS!

Submissions are invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, Gaelic, & Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

#Scottish #literature #writing #WritingCommunity #IAmWriting #poetry #shortfiction #shortstories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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170d

"... In a final attempt to bring down my arch nemesis, weapons exhausted, I flung my watch and hit him at the back of the foot, causing him to fall.. Stunned he looked up at me and said "but my defenses were impenetrable, I was winning!", as I looked down at him, smiled slightly & said "Fool, time wounds all heels" ...."

#ShowerThoughts #Musings #ShortStory #ShortStories

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159d

A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Ed. by Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher

“writing that unsettles and challenges, that questions assumptions and gets us to look at, when it feels so much less painful to look away… A rich, boisterous, tender, charming, angry, sorrowful, gleeful mix”

Available now from all good bookshops!

@bookstodon
@writingcommunity

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws43/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #shortstories #shortfiction #newwriting #writingcommunity

Book cover

A Chaos of Light
New Writing Scotland 43

Edited by Kirstin Innes and Chris Powici
Gaelic Editor: Niall O'Gallagher

A dark purple-black cover. The book title is in pale yellow. A beam of white light rises up from the foot of the cover, forming the letter I in LIGHT. It hits the bottom of the capital A in CHAOS – represented by an upwards-pointing solid triangle – and a burst of colour emerges from the right-hand side of the triangle, as if light was passing through a prism. Multicoloured sparkles rise from the right-hand edge of the cover where the spectrum of light hits it.

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151d

My fiction is in the new issue of The Kleksograph

You can give my Gothic short story, Two Dreams, a read here (with apologies for PDF accessibility shortcomings!): https://www.kleksograph.be/ #ShortStories #ShortStory #Gothic #WritersOfMastodon

Cover of issue 18 of the Kleksograph, featuring a red-hued, long-necked bear-like creature and the names of the contributors

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Edited 151d ago

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134d

"The Worm In The Apple" by John Cheever (1958) wasn't published in the New Yorker. Instead it was written as an introductory story to his first collection of short stories, The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories published by Harper and Brothers in 1958. It is also included in The Stories of John Cheever published in 1978, which is where I read it.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_09/worm_in_the_apple.html

#bookstodon #reading #ShortStories @bookstodon

An altered cover of The Housebreaker of Shady Hills and Other Stories to say The Worm in the Apple.

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58d

Five stars:

3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi and Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator) is the first story in the Time Traveler's Passport series. The title describes the time a time traveler has to wait before returning home.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_12/3_days_9_months_27_years.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon #audioBook #shortStories #SciFi

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111d

“Stephen,” said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—“Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.”

—from “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, by Walter Scott: just what lengths do you have to go to to convince a landlord that you’ve paid the rent?

#Scottish #literature #SirWalterScott #19thcentury #ShortStories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Scotstober

‘Stephen,’ said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—‘Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.’

Stephen. ‘Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your father.’

Sir John. ‘Ye took a receipt, then, doubtless, Stephen; and can produce it?’

Stephen. ‘Indeed I hadna time, an it like your honour; for nae sooner had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour, Sir Robert, that’s gaen, drew it till him to count it, and write out the receipt, he was ta’en wi’ the pains that removed him.’

‘That was unlucky,’ said Sir John, after a pause. ‘But ye maybe paid it in the presence of somebody, I want but a talis qualis evidence, Stephen. I would go ower strictly to work with no poor man.’

Stephen. ‘Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but Dougal MacCallum the butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e’en followed his auld master.’

‘Very unlucky again, Stephen,’ said Sir John, without altering his voice a single note. ‘The man to whom ye paid the money is dead—and the man who witnessed the payment is dead too—and the siller, which should have been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard tell of in the repositories. How am I to believe a’ this?’

Stephen. ‘I dinna, ken, your honour; but there is a bit memorandum note of the very coins; for, God help me! I had to borrow out of twenty purses; and I am sure that ilka man there set down will take his grit oath for what purpose I borrowed the money.’

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104d

WRITERS!

Submissions are invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, Gaelic, & Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

#Scottish #literature #writing #WritingCommunity #IAmWriting #poetry #shortfiction #shortstories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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96d

WRITERS!

Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

#Scottish #literature #writing #WritingCommunity #IAmWriting #poetry #shortfiction #shortstories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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96d

So here's #Autumn2025 with box fresh #ShortStories from Helon Habila, Ephameron, Caroline Clark, Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall and Kasimma – plus Chadwick Allen on the classics of #Indigenous #literature

Catch them all at https://fictionable.world

#books #reading #writing #fiction #comics #translation #blog #bookstodon @bookstodon

The contributors to Fictionable's Autumn 2025 issue. From top left Helon Habila, Kasimma, Ephameron, Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall, Caroline Clark and Chadwick Allen

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81d

“In crime, as in all life, nothing is fixed or certain. Put another way, it is part of the mystery of being, which has its origin in religious faith, & Stevenson’s stories abound in mysteries”

SINS & FOLLIES
Three Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

🗡️ “A Lodging for the Night”
🪞 “Markheim”
💀 “The Body-Snatcher”

Download the free ebook

@bookstodon

1/4

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/sins-and-follies-2/

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #ShortStories #CrimeFiction #19thcentury #Victorian #gothic #RLSDay

Book cover

Sins and Follies

Three stories
by
Robert Louis Stevenson

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53d

The big reveal…

So I wrote up a lot of these little stories a few years ago but I’ve added some new ones, cleaned it all up and now I’m the happiest with it that I’ve ever been. You can definitely get a copy in time for Christmas, if you’re so inclined…

https://amzn.eu/d/2kbNn7k

#bookreveal #newreleases #books #bookstodon #selfpublishing #author #shortstories

A man with glasses is smiling and holding several copies of a book titled "With So Many Sagas in the World..." by David Olsen. The background shows a cozy room setting with warm lighting.

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46d

“In story after story, epicene young men, difficult children, or wild beasts set out to shake up the stifling complacency around them”

Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) – Saki – was born #OTD, 18 Dec, in Myanmar. Although born in the Raj & raised in England, his parents were Scots & he considered himself to be a Scot, too. Fatema Ahmed looks at his fierce, funny, & wicked fiction

@bookstodon

1/8

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/43602/untameable-saki

#Scottish #literature #Saki #shortstories #humor #humour #horror #Edwardian

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42d

Five stars:

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (2017) is a collection of queer feminist horror stories that each sit on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Each story is an exploration of autonomy that are presented in different surreal manifestations.

https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_12/her_body_and_other_parties.html

#bookstodon
@bookstodon #shortstories

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1y

My first fictional story. There are no physical descriptions or names so as to allow our minds to fill in those details based on our own experiences from our own cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds. What image did your mind create of the couple? Did certain people come to mind?

#shortstories #writing #author

https://philpetree.com/slinging-mud

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20d

So here's the first of the #MysteryAuthors from our #Winter issue.

Nice trees, somewhat obscured by the #BlankPage

But who could it be?

#books #reading #writing #ShortStories #fiction #comics #translation #blog #bookstodon

A desk looks out on lush foliage, with piles of books, a lamp and a computer screen showing an empty page

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12d

Titanium, Ruin and Strife (author: me)

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10d

A paper bag full of human bones

A few days ago, I stood in the graveyard of an 1100 year old church, getting damper and damper in the drizzling rain.

A woman walked into the graveyard, waved, said hello, and, as we had previously arranged, handed me a paper bag full of human bones.

The life of a churchwarden is a strange one…

The story begins, as so many stories do, with me walking home from the pub. It was early evening, but dark and rainy.

I pass the church I’m responsible for looking after, and I see the local gas company is beginning to erect barriers around an area of pavement outside the churchyard.

I am filled with a sense of foreboding. I know this church. I know this place. I know that area of pavement used to be graveyard, before they re-routed the road.

I consider going over and saying “hi. If you find a body, don’t worry, just give me a call”

And then I think about that for a second, and how they would absolutely phone the police if a stranger in a hoodie walked up to them in the dark and said “don’t phone the police if you find a body, call me.”

So I go home.

And, as anticipated, a few days later, I get a message. I need to phone the police. An “object” has been found near the churchyard, and they want to speak to me.

I ring the number the police gave me. I know exactly what’s happened. The officer goes “we wanted to speak to you about…” And I just go “where the gas workers were digging used to be graveyard.” And I hear her yell “sarge! I’ve got a guy from the church on the phone! It DID used to be graveyard!”

I have to go down to the church. A team of detectives in plain clothes turn up. They’ve got plans from the record office but they can’t read them. I pull out old papers from our files. I show them what they’re looking at. The line of the churchyard wall over time. The shrinking of the graveyard.

We go outside, so I can show the police the old plans in context. I look into the hole the workers dug. See the pavement blocks, the sand they laid them on, and below that, rich black dirt. I exclaim “Oh! That’s graveyard dirt! I’d know it anywhere! That’s well fed dirt, if you know what I mean.”

I talk for a while to these detectives, about graveyard dirt. How to identify it. How the graveyard size and shape fluctuated over time. How, when they made the new road, they dug a foot or so down, took the bones they found, and then stopped. How the ground was filled with bodies for meters around.

Somehow, I do not get arrested.

As the detectives are going to leave, to take all they’d learned back to hq, I say, “look, I know nobody is confirming you’ve found bones. But I know it’s bones, and you know it’s bones, and you know that I know it’s bones.”

And they say “…yes.”

And so I say to the detectives “look, I know it’s a weird question, but when you’ve confirmed they’re old graveyard bones, not murder bones, can we have them back?”

And the detectives say “… We’ve never been asked that before…”

I say to the police that it’s important to us, to have the bones back. That whoever they belonged to wanted to be buried, here, at this church. That even though time separates us, time is nothing to God, and they are still part of our community. I say we want to bring them home. To rebury them.

I say there’s church law, and other considerations, of course, but that, all that aside… It’s the right thing to do.

The police promise to ask and let me know. And they head off to continue their investigation.

For the rest of the day, a rotating cast of police officers visit the church. They say they’re doing “reassurance patrols”. I tell them that they’re more stressed than we are. That human bones are an everyday occurrence here, with our ancient graveyard. Then I offer each of them a cup of tea.

Finally they lift the scene. They decide, as we knew all along, that the human bones found inches from the wall of an ancient graveyard, were, in fact, graveyard bones, not murder bones.

I email the police, reiterating my desire to have the bones returned.

And they come back, offering to drop them off in about a week.

I arrange a meeting, and, standing in the garage in the drizzling rain, am handed a police evidence bag, full of human remains.

I ask the police if I have to sign for them? Show ID? Anything? After all… This is a person. They say… No.I take the bones inside. Kneel before the altar. Carefully open the evidence bag, lift out the skull, the femur. The vertebra. Still cold and damp from the earth. Most of the bones we find work their way to the surface, and so I’m shocked by how delicate these feel, wrenched from their resting place.

I gently wipe the mud and dirt from the bones. Wrap them in white linen. Place them in the wicker basket where we keep all the bones that escape our graveyard. Pray.One day soon, we’ll hold a service and rebury them. A priest will lead the service, and I will dig the hole, and we will lower these fragments of person back into the rich black earth, in this, the place they chose to be.

After all this disturbance, we will, once again, pray them to their rest.

Writer: Jay Hulme

Takahe has limited support for this type: See Original Page

Edited 10d ago

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186d

Each of our lives has many facets/personas, and rarely does anyone get to see them all. In this story, Phil Petree shares his.

(I'm sure there are other names I didn't cover.)

#shortstory #shortstories #name

https://philpetree.com/my-many-names

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207d

A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Ed. by Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher

“writing that unsettles and challenges, that questions assumptions… A rich, boisterous, tender, charming, angry, sorrowful, gleeful mix”

The latest & best collection of new writing in English, Gaelic, & Scots, coming Aug 2025 – available for preorder from all good bookshops!

@writingcommunity

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws43/

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots #poetry #shortstories #writing

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236d

Now on #Hoopla! Relics From A Traveling Show has:
⭐Whimsy
🐲A gargoyle
🪄Magical schools
👵Heroic aunties saving the day
😈Evil bureaucrats getting their comeuppance

(yes, I'm clueless about emoji, but I swear it's a really good bunch stories & you might love one or all of them.)

also at all the usual vendors:
books2read.com/RelicsFromATravelingShow

#Fantasy #ShortStories #Bookstodon

Screenshot of the Hoopla page entry for Relics From a Traveling Show, with the book cover (A young wizard sitting in their magical study full of artifacts looking out the window at a caravan wagon) and the borrowing information.

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185d

WRITERS!

Submissions are invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, Gaelic, & Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

#Scottish #literature #writing #WritingCommunity #IAmWriting #poetry #shortfiction #shortstories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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188d

The latest issue of NORTHWORDS NOW (#46, Summer–Autumn 2025) is available free online – featuring poems, short stories, articles & book reviews, in English, Gaelic & Scots

New writing, fresh from Scotland and the wider North
Sgrìobhadh ùr à Alba agus an Àird a Tuath

https://www.northwordsnow.co.uk/Issue46

#Scottish #literature #poetry #shortstories #shortfiction #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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