Thursday, April 02, 2009

Wilderness Rooms and Bleeding Hearts

Am delighted to say that my rather surreal short story, The Wilderness Room, has just been published by All Things Girl webzine and can be found here. I do hope you enjoy the oddity of it all.

However, the bad news is that I'm still sick, though I did manage about 5 hours' sleep last night, waking up at about 4am, which wasn't too awful really. I tackled a very small breakfast, but I think that's about it for today, food-wise. At least the permanent feeling of nausea has faded. I just can't stop coughing and my head, nose and throat are rubbish. Sigh.

As a result of all that, we've decided not to go out to the theatre tonight and Lord H in fact took the tickets to work this morning to see if he could offer them to anyone. I've also cancelled my golf outing and my Alexander Technique lesson tomorrow, as I think leaving the flat will be a bad idea.

Meanwhile, as I've been doing over the last couple of weeks, I've practised the reading of my short story, Creative Accountancy for Beginners, though today this was in a voice that sounded as if I've smoked fifty a day for the last thirty years. Which is rather irritating as I have to admit I've never even smoked once (probably the result of watching my mother spend years of my childhood attempting to give it up, which she eventually succeeded in doing ...). The reading is this Sunday in Brighton at the Komedia Club Fantasy reading event. It kicks off at 8pm so if you're in the area, do pop along. It would be lovely to see you. I hope my voice is better by then.

Talking of matters literary, Andrew Taylor's latest stand-alone historical crime novel, Bleeding Heart Square, is kick-ass good. Ruddy brilliant really. Great atmosphere, fascinating setting of the 1930s and the British Fascist Party, and a hugely sympathetic heroine who leaves her husband for a new life and finds rather more mystery than she bargained for. Marvellous twist in the very end too, which is perfect and perfectly set up, but I didn't see it coming. Wonderful. Another one I can recommend wholeheartedly (ho ho - couldn't resist the pun ...).

Today's nice things:

1. Short story publication
2. Getting a few hours' sleep
3. Books.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - wondering if in fact smoking might help ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read The Wilderness Room Anne, and it was brilliant. :)

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, gosh, thanks - glad you enjoyed it! I wasn't really sure what on earth was going on when I wrote it but felt it ended up somewhere - somehow!

:))

Axxx

Nik Perring said...

Congrats on the story, Anne - and I hope you're feeling better soon. Being poorly is the pits.

Nik :)

Anne Brooke said...

Thanks, Nik. Though worse today, I'm afraid - I'm going to try for the doctor ...

Axxx