I have been working with the great team at Shepherd.com and I have produced a short review of the important books on cricket fiction.

                                                                book reviews

I have also produced a short review of books on domestic abuse.

                                                    domestic abuse reviews

CafeLitMagazine: Releasing the Eagle by Stuart Larner, Mongolian ...

CafeLitMagazine: Releasing the Eagle by Stuart Larner, Mongolian ...:   In the evening gloom along the Zhavkhan valley of Western Mongolia, Catherine Mackenzie’s jeep slithered in the snow, turned sideways, the...

 New poem:

The Change Has Already Begun

 

 

I dream of danger, wake up in danger.

I smile, though I know I should frown.

Strange red clouds are patrolling the sky

And the sun will no longer lie down.

 

Café customers have taken first sips

of a brew that’s becoming too strong.

The morning trains are jammed to the doors,

and the journeys are taking too long.

 

Children in schools open books up anew,

but all teaching has long since been done.

A new kind of sports day is coming our way –

where the race has already been won.

 

Media swear truth on their bulletin hour,

yet the news on the web has been spun.

I look for a sign that something's to start,

but the change has already begun.

 

 

Stuart Larner

 

First published by DODO modern poets.

For a video of me reading this go to:

https://dodovidpoets.blogspot.com/2022/06/virtual-dodo-9.html

I am the seventh entry on the July 2022 list, in edition DODO NINE

Poets Respond Open Mic | March 29th I'm reading @marker 22.15

My latest play

" Syrian Crossings" ,my latest play, was given a rehearsed reading 

as part of the "Money Talks " Beach Hut  Festival

Scarborough Library, 17th November 2018.

It tackles the subject of refugees crossing the River Meriҫ between Turkey and Greece. 

Two Syrian refugees must give up their treasured possessions to people-smugglers if they are to succeed on their very different journeys. 

The start of my short story "The Flaw"
from the anthology at Bridge House publishing "Crackers"

It was not until Francesca had brought the antique bowl back to her shop and inspected it beneath her lamp that she saw the crack.

She swore at herself. How could she, the owner of one of the premier antiques shops in town, have spent five hundred on such a bowl when its value was now probably a fraction of that? She noticed that the date marks on the bowl were letters, whereas they were usually coded dots for that period of Royal Worcester. Yet, the depiction of the apples, pears and plums was so lifelike that she could almost pick them from the bowl surface and eat them.

She knew that she should not sell it at a high price knowing it had a flaw. Later discovery by an expert would publicly taint her reputation as surely as the crack marred the bowl. Then she thought of her long-planned cruise holiday, and what might happen if she had insufficient funds to cover it when the time came. 

She wondered how many of her customers would see the crack in her dimly-lit shop if she could barely see it. If a tourist whom she would never see again bought it, there might not be any comeback as it would have been offered on an as-found basis. She dared to put it in the window at eleven hundred.

Many passers-by stopped to gaze at it through the window, but none offered to buy it. In her mind each aborted purchase was a punishment for displaying it at such a high price, and each day that the bowl remained unsold in her window was a glaring reminder to her of her deception. Over the weeks she reluctantly reduced the price, and this lessened her guilt.  Then, just as she was closing early one day, a distinguished-looking man in a suit and bowtie appeared.

go to http://bridgehousepublishing.blogspot.com/ to read other stories.