



The Reading Room
Dear Visitors
We'd like to extend a warm welcome to all of you to
our Literature Category.
Thank You
literature
"The Ruined and What we say to them".
A short story. " ...It was, I admit, with perverse anticipation that I entered through the scarlet draped columns of Igor's small mansion. Greeted by paintings mostly of Russian royalty, the odd horse standing dumbly in pasture, or the various seasons of what a rich man must imagine the life of a peasant to be..."
"The Basilisk Revisited"
A short story. " ...Two years ago, just as covid broke but before the shape of it became clear, I wrote a story. I’m not sure where it came from; then again, this theme has interested me since I was a boy. If you’ve read any of my novels you’ll recognise the undercurrent.
I’m not sure it’s much good as a story, or even if it quite is one. In fact, two years on I prefer to see it less as a work of fiction and more of a piece of current affairs journalism. Or perhaps a working hypothesis."
"The Waiting Room"
"the Waiting Room" is a short piece of speculative fiction written in the spirit of Flannery O'Connor. It follows an afternoon in the life of a breastfeeding mother who makes a single, thoughtless, tragic mistake.
"A Proper Fist"
"A Proper Fist" is a deleted chapter from The Lightkeeper, a novel from Ancient Faith Publishing. It follows the main character into a future when she stands guard over a strange lighthouse during a nuclear bombing.
"The Birthpains"
The Birthpains is a short poem on the nature of unceasing prayer by Tim Grace.
"A Gentle Sacrifice"
"....I love to sleep with a book Open on my chest, Its legs straddling me,
Not like a lover but more like my guardian angel..." A poem by Tim Grace.