short story – Caroline Ashley

The Kelpie

My short story the Kelpie has recently been published by Elixir Verse Press in their inaugural issue – Elixir Verse Equinox: Terra Verses.

This issue has a great selection of stories all celebrating the magic of the earth and those who live on it. It includes a poem called Who Haunts Lonely Roads by Charlotte Amelia Poe, British author of How To Be Autistic. And a short story called All True Love Is Sacrifice by Maggie Nerz Iribarne, about a woman and her non-verbal son finding hope when they visit the fairies in Ireland. I also enjoyed Christopher R. Muscato‘s story, The Seven Sages of Grief, which explores a woman coming to terms with the loss of her sister.

I’ve made my story available for free here on my website, to give you a taste of the work within Terra Verses. There are many more beautiful pieces in this issue, so do please consider buying it if the concept captures your interest. Anthologies such as these survive through people contributing by purchasing when they can and telling other people about the stories they’ve enjoyed.

In other news, another story of mine, called They Do Not Know The Earth, will soon be published in Issue 3 of the Hooghly Review. This will be freely available so watch this space for another great collection of stories.

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The Rise of Nilcaro Syndrome

My horror story The Rise of Nilcaro Syndrome has been published in Issue 94 of Blood Moon Rising Magazine. This issue is available to view for free until next month, after which you’ll need to purchase it in their store if you’d like to read it.

In case horror isn’t really your thing, but you’d still like to read my story in particular, I’ve also uploaded it to my website: The Rise of Nilcaro Syndrome

This story is about a pandemic of flesh eating humans, from the perspective of a teenage boy living in Glasgow. It is a bit gory in places, but it’s mostly a story about how Johnny and his family react to the pandemic as it spreads across their community.

I should be posting details of another published horror story later on this week, so be on the look out for the next update!

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Merry Christmas!

Spillwords have published a Christmas story of mine called Fireside Memories. This was one of the first short stories I wrote after getting back into writing in early 2022, submitted to a Globe Soup contest to the theme of ‘an unlikely friendship’. I liked the idea of making the story about a man and ‘man’s best friend’, except in a world where that isn’t entirely the case any more. I’ve edited it a lot since the original draft and I also made it Christmassy for the submissions call with Spillwords, so it is a bit different from the first version. I’ve had some lovely feedback from other writers since it’s been published, which is a great little gift right before Christmas.

Finally, today I’ve uploaded another blog post, this time about using Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos and pathos) in writing fiction. This is an example of The Rule of Three in action – Aristotle separates quite a few of his concepts into three parts, likely because he knew the rhetorical power of things that come in threes. His writing was clearly effective, given that we’re still talking about him more than two thousand years later!

This is my last post of 2023 so all that’s left is to thank you for following my blog this year and I hope you continue to enjoy my work next year. See you in 2024! 🥳

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Author of the month!

When I started trying to get my work published online, Spillwords was one of the first places to accept a short story of mine for their website. This month I’ve been nominated as their author of the month for October 2023!

I’m never usually someone who wins popularity contests, being the introverted nerd that I am, so I’m very proud that my work has inspired people to vote for me 😊 If you haven’t read my stories on Spillwords, you can find them on my Spillwords author page.

I’ve just finished a long month or so of writing short stories for the Globe Soup genre smash followed by pulling another story together for the Commonwealth Short Story prize. My brain now feels like mince 😅 But despite that, I’m about to start working on the final chapters of George Square – started when my 19 month old wasn’t even born yet, I’m excited to get to the finale. There are already things that I’m desperate to edit but overall I’m really happy with what I’ve managed to accomplish. ❤️

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Defender of the forest

Just a short post to say that Roi Fai n é ant Press have published a flash fiction story that I wrote called Defender of the Forest. It’s a story about growing up and moving on from the games of our childhood but still holding on to the stories that we told.

I originally wrote ‘Defender of the Forest’ for a submission call by Space Cat Press on the theme of ‘Into the Forest’. It wasn’t accepted but I edited it afterwards and tried elsewhere. Many thanks to Roi Fainéant Press for publishing the new improved version 😊

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My latest story – Granny Beatson

Spillwords are showcasing my latest story, Granny Beatson, in the featured section of their website 😊 This is the third time they’ve published one of my stories and I’m very grateful to them for their support!

This story was originally written for Globe Soup’s Open short story competition last year and received an honourable mention. One of the reasons that I enjoy the Globe Soup community is that they do take the time to recognise the top 10% who enter their contests, as it gives you that little bit of feedback that you’re on the right track and your writing might be worth sharing. I did subsequently enter this story into another contest, where it didn’t place, but that’s the joy of writing! 🤣

Granny Beatson is the story of a girl and her grandmother and how their relationship changes as she grows up and her grandmother grows older. Because it’s me, there’s also a little dash of fantasy, with a ritual to the fae that binds them over time.

It was a difficult story to write because while it wasn’t autobiographical, it did bring up memories about my relationship with my nana and how it changed as I grew from a child to a teenager and she became less able. She passed away when I was still a teenager and I do look back and wish sometimes that we could have had a relationship when I was older, wiser, and less caught up in growing up and moving away from my roots. We certainly weren’t as close in my teenage years but I do fondly remember my childhood visits and sleepovers at her house.

I hope you enjoy reading my story and maybe that it inspires you to reflect on your own childhood and your relationship with your grandparents.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be working hard to finish my entries to Globe Soup’s Genre Smash and I’m also hoping to pull something together for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

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The writing continues…

Once again I need to come up with something to say to you all 😂

My daughter wondering what I’ve achieved this week 😅

I’ve been taking a bit of a break from writing this week due to being on holiday in a wee cottage near Annan. This holiday included my 1 year old and 4 year old, so largely included play parks and food, but we did get the reward of hot tub time in the evening once the kids had been put to bed, with a lovely view over the fields.

From a writing point of view, I mostly spent my time this month preparing a short story for Globe Soup’s Open Contest, which you could enter if you had paid for their writing course. Admittedly, I probably haven’t read their lessons as thoroughly as I should have, but I think the story that I finished with was fairly decent – hopefully the judges agree! 🙂

Since then, I’ve been editing the latest chapter of George Square and coming up with ideas for my next Storytelling blog. I even managed to find some time to submit a few stories to online magazines – hopefully at least one will be accepted!

In good news for this month, one of my stories was a finalist in the 10th Globe Soup 7 day story writing challenge. The winning story, by Morgan McIntyre, was really good and definitely worth a read.

My story for this contest had to be historical fiction, which is not my favourite. Largely because my historical knowledge is rubbish – while I used to be good at remembering dates and names for exams in school, my brain refuses to store such details as part of my ongoing general knowledge. Thankfully, historical fiction can also include fantasy elements, so this story was basically a story about a kelpie that happened to be set during the Highland Clearances. As always, my next step is to spend months on end trying to find someone who wants to publish it, so wish me luck! 🙈

In less good but still positive news, I submitted a sci-fi story to F&SF (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction), who are a pretty big magazine if you’re into sci-fi and fantasy. They rejected my story but with a very positive email, saying that they didn’t think I would have trouble finding a home for it. A sign of further improvement in my work! Now I need to submit to other places until I find one that says yes 🙂

Feel free to check out my other published work or have a look at my Storytelling blog, about the psychology within storytelling.

Continuing to progress with my writing

I’m feeling rather proud of myself and my writing this month. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been entering writing contests through Globe Soup, who have a wonderful supportive Facebook community. Due to the regularity of their contests, I’ve been writing roughly one short story and one flash story per month since I joined. The regular practice has definitely led to an improvement in my writing skills and writing flash in particular has given me a new appreciation for how much weight and meaning a single word can carry in a story.

On the 31st, Globe Soup announced the winners of two contests that I had entered. For their Open Short Story Contest, I received an honourable mention and for their 7 Day Story Challenge (where you write a story in your allocated genre in 7 days) I was a finalist and top three in the genre that I had been allocated to write in. Being named on the winner’s page means being in the top 10% of submissions and I know every one has several hundred entrants, if not more, so I’m rather proud of the progress that I’ve made in just six months.

I don’t plan to share either story on my website at the moment, because I’m looking into options for publication in online magazines or possibly entering a different contest. If any friends are interested enough to want to read them, you can always get in touch and I’ll email a copy to you 😊

Due to Globe Soup being very kind to their members, I also received a free ticket to their latest contest, which was historical fiction. Ended up writing a fairy tale-esque story set in World War 2. Historical fiction isn’t generally my cup of tea and I wasn’t a fan of all the research I had to do so I don’t think I’ll repeat the experience any time soon 😂 Globe Soup plan to announce the winner for that contest at the end of November so fingers crossed!

In terms of writing George Square, that has taken a bit of a back seat this month but thankfully I was a couple of chapters ahead of myself anyway! When I started, I was far enough ahead to be able to review a few chapters together and move things about if needed. Currently I’m not far enough ahead to do that but I’m going to make a concerted effort to get a couple of chapters drafted this month so I’m ahead of myself again. I promise I will keep going!

Have a wee look at my short fiction if you haven’t already.

Another wee publication

I entered a contest through Globe Soup which was to write a story of up to 100 words on the theme of Darkness. I didn’t win the contest but my story is now published here for you to read. With many thanks to The Drabble for publishing it 🙂

The story is called The World Without Stars and is about how the world might react if the stars all disappeared.

I’ve only recently started turning my hand to flash fiction and it’s an even tricker endeavour when your story is limited to just 100 words. However, I do think it’s teaching me a lot about making every word count and really considering which words are best at communicating my ideas. I do think it’s helping to hone my general writing skills, which will hopefully mean improvements in my short stories and longer fiction over time.

I hope you enjoy my story and if you’re just discovering my website please do check out my other work. I enjoy writing fantasy in particular and my current work in progress is a serialised young adult fantasy novel called George Square 🙂

My first publication!

Click here to go to my story, Catriona Banks, on Spillwords 😀

I think I mentioned in a previous blog post that I’ve been working on short stories and flash fiction along with continuing to update George Square. Most of my work has been entered into contests with Globe Soup, who you should definitely check out if you’re interested in writing because they have a very active and supportive Facebook community as well as regular free to enter contests.

Once I inevitably don’t win the contests (😅) I have started to submit my work to online publications. Most of these take a while to reply but I’ve now had my first acceptance! ☺️

Spillwords have published my short story, Catriona Banks – a modern fantasy tale about a thief who steals one of the Fae’s greatest treasures. You can read my story here as well as checking out the other work on their site.

I have submitted other stories elsewhere so fingers crossed there will soon be other updates about successes with my work! 😄