The Monthly Flash #03

A white mountain range rose in the distance and against that backdrop the caribou moved on and on. Then they vanished. Fred craned his neck as far as he was able but only the brick terrace across the road now filled his field of vision …

Read Christine Howe’s story, Day of the Caribou>>

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The Weekly Poem #27

Short and sharp, sweet and sour – South Lakeland’s former Poet Laureate Maggie Norton gets her ticket punched en route to Penrith in A Late Love Poem>>

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The Weekly Poem #26

The nearest you can get to loft living in Carlisle, Shaddon or Dixon’s Mill is now a huge block of swanky apartments, itself dwarfed by the defiant finger of Dixon’s Chimney. Kathleen Jones’s great grandad knew it before the floors were sanded.

Read the poem, Dixon’s Mill>>

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Working Nights – A Festive Flash

Our Consulting Flash Fiction Editor, Brindley Hallam Dennis, sent us this story in the Christmas hols, in the hope that we might be able to rattle it out in a truncated Christmas issue of The Weekly Word. Sadly, we were so truncated by confectionery and cut-price single malt that we couldn’t get off the sofa. So treat this offering by Jenny Harrow as a late Christmas card and unexpected gift.

Read Working Nights>>

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The Weekly Poem #25

From Back o’ Skiddaw to the roof of the world – in this week’s poem, the well-travelled Angela Locke reflects on journeys corporeal, spiritual, and political.

Read the poem, After the sky burial: Tibet>>

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The Weekly Poem #24

Here for the weekend, you ask where the young
hang out nights in this back-of-beyond place …

This week, Martin Malone explains why the young folks are leaving the lovely village of Maulds Meaburn. Jobs? Education? Night life? No – they can’t get a phone signal …

Read the poem, Meaburn>>

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The Monthly Flash #02

To celebrate National Short Story Day, here’s the second story in our monthly(-ish) series of new Cumbrian flash fiction, in which Sue Banister gives us a desperate housewife with knobs on. “It always began with the toast …”

Read the story: Swallowing>>

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The Weekly Poem #23

Dusk in a wintry garden, somewhere in the Lake District, finds Mike Smith in meditative mood:

Winter grants me this at least, here in the garden:
to see the night come slowly on,
overwhelming all mountains and the lake … read more>>

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The Weekly Poem #22

In this week’s poem, Malcolm Carson is back in a Belfast classroom, snookered by Latin vocabulary and attracting some routine intimidation.

Read the poem – Mille passus>>

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The Weekly Poem #20

This week, Jon Tait remembers a strange encounter in an American shopping mall. At least, we’re assuming it was American, and not The Lanes in Carlisle.

Read the poem>>

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And the winners are …

A strong showing from poets based in Cumbria in a couple of recent poetry competitions – Joanne Weeks and Annie Foster took 2nd and 3rd prizes at Maryport’s ‘Beyond the Frontier’ competition, judged by Josephine Dickinson, while Mungrisedale Writers’ member John Fryer picked up 2nd prize in their competition, themed ‘Looking Back’ and judged by Grevel Lindop.

Read their poems>>

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The Monthly Flash #01

In the first of this new series, Brindley Hallam Dennis is struggling to maintain his dignity in a department store on Remembrance Day. Lifts and lingerie both feature – never a good combination in real life, but fraught with fabulous possibilities in the realm of short fiction.

Read the story, Thoughts in Ladies Lingerie>>

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The Weekly Poem #19

John North gives us a road poem, journeying west to east across the scrawny neck of the kingdom through rain and reivers until the road runs out at the cold North Sea.

Read Drive Out from Carlisle>>

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