Click here to visit the Litfest website and listen to the Flash Mob stories – including Mollie’s ‘Talent Show,’ or you can download the entire anthology for Kindle or iBook.
Archive for the ‘Read Mollie’s Writing’ Category
Flash Mob Flax #026 listen or download for Kindle or iBook
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011Fundraiser for the Victims of the Pakistan Floods – 11th September!
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Things aren’t getting any better in Pakistan after the floods, in fact they’re getting a good deal worse. Not only is this a fantastic cause, but I get to play alongside my old sensai, Graham Mort, who was one of my MA lecturers. Eeh, what larks we used to have… You should read his collection of short stories ‘Touch’ published by Seren, including the Bridport winning ‘The Prince.’ Holy Cow. He really is very good.
Because this gig is organised by the Abaseen Foundation charity, payment details are a little different to usual – please check the poster.
Thanks, and I hope to see some of you there! A night of folk and blues all in aid of urgently needed aid.
Thinking in Slices
Sunday, May 16th, 2010
‘Thinking in Slices’ is a kind of ghost story. It was published in Flax’s ‘Square Cuts,’ anthology as a limited edition mini-book, but is still available free, for online download from the Litfest website.
Believe it or not I hadn’t realised the parallels it has with a certain film starring Alan Rickman and Zoe Wannamaker… it was more about my aspirations to one day learn the cello. Maybe writing about it helped it come true!
Extract from ‘Nailing Cats to Trees.’ (Work in Progress.)
Sunday, May 16th, 2010
She stepped off the bus unable to remember any of the ride home. All she’d thought about was how to put Ste’s invitation to her parents. It was important, she’d decided, for her to show that she had pre-empted their fears, but at the same time to play them down. Her argument was ready, refined to three stages: First, a calm, reasonable and confident approach. Second, the statement of Ste’s invitation. Thirdly, the mediation: she was on top of exam revision, Ste was a good, responsible friend, they were going to pick her up and bring her back.
She pushed through the front gate, and almost collided with Dad who was coming out of the shed.
‘What’s up?’ she asked pinning herself against the wall to let him pass. Something was wrong; she could see it in his face. She watched him disappear round the side of the house. He was wearing marigold gloves and was carrying pliers. She carried on inside.
In the kitchen, water thundered into the sink. Lucy went in just in time to see Mum take Craig’s arms roughly and plunge them into the lather.
‘Scrub them!’ she ordered, passing him a nailbrush.
Typical, thought Lucy. In trouble again. Her brother was thirteen, three years younger than her. Craig spent a lot of time in the garden – they weren’t really allowed out of the house on their own except to go to school. Perhaps he’d been playing near the septic tank again.
The Frustrations of Patience, and Outspoken 3P event April 1st
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
I’ll be doing a set of short pieces in Clitheroe on April 1st as part of Outspoken’s ’3P’ events coming to the north for the first time. I’ve decided to a set of shorts, that are (hopefully) amusing.
Here’s a taster…
PATIENCE
Contrary to popular belief, patience is not a card game for just one player. It is, in fact, a fundamentally two-player game – a detail sadly overlooked in most rule books.
Player One deals the cards and proceeds to arrange them by suit and rank according to certain spatial rules. This half of the game is familiar to us all and requires no further explanation.
Sadly, what is often neglected is the role of Player Two. Thankfully, it seems we have an instinctive facility to abide by the true system that the rulebooks overlook. The game begins when Player One invites Player Two to a game of Rummy, Pontoon, Go Fish etcetera – it isn’t important which game, as long as it is for two players. Player Two then declines. (Experienced players may at this point enter into a series of coercions and refusals, but new players may skip this step for now).
Player One shuffles and deals the cards for a game of patience. Within a few minutes, Player Two should seat himself uninvited at a convenient distance and, judging their timing with care, should begin to offer Helpful Hints, kindly pointing out any missed opportunities on the part of Player One, trying to achieve a score of 21 comments.
Needless to say, the true object of the game for Player One is not to assemble the cards by suit and rank, but in doing so, without wrapping Player Two’s eyebrows around their fist. Clearly, the difficulty of such a task may go some way to explaining why these rules have fallen by the wayside.
Wired In: March 22nd 2010
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
Wired In March 22nd 2010
Monday 22 March 2010
For line-up visit: http://www.dukes-lancaster.org/music/wired-in
I’ve just finished tinkering with the piece I’m going to read. It’s a little bit different to what I usually write… I’m trying to do 3 different things.
First of all, rather than telling a story, I’m trying to use words to convey a series of images, such as would be seen in an abstract film.
Secondly, I’m trying to use images that either I personally associate with my hometown, Morecambe, or that are captured in Richard Davis’s collection of ‘All about Morecambe’ photographs.
Thirdly, I’m trying to invite listeners/viewers to see Morecambe differently. Not in any particular way differently, but to look at it with fresh eyes, whatever that means to them.
You never know, I might be able to persuade Mr Dave George of Electric Free Time Machine to improvise some loopy atmospherics behind the reading… I have just over 24 hours to do that.
(c) Richard Davis
Extract:
…the picture wobbles. Now you are watching a home movie: a camera jerks round too fast – you feel vertigo, a seagull cuts an arc in the sky, you see a face in shadow. The face turns and the figure runs – a child across the sand, feet kicking up behind, to join a second, smaller girl who has her back to the sea. The camera angle drops as if submissive, you peer up at her from a dog’s eye view.
She points behind the camera, behind you. You are curious, you wait for the camera to follow, but it won’t turn. Frost crackles over the screen. Something is trying to stop you from seeing. You swipe the frost away. You are getting cold, cold and frustrated.
How can you see what she sees? The camera just needs to follow her pointing finger. You have an idea… surely it can’t work? You pick up the TV, lift it from its crust of snow. You turn slowly, eyes on the screen and… yes, as you turn, so does the picture inside the TV.
Finally, you are in control. The image sweeps across the beach in the direction of the girl’s pointing finger.
What will you see? The screen goes black and you open your eyes. Did you know that they were closed?