Publications
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"You begin with scavenger crows. Unintentionally, more as a mind-calming exercise than anything, the way other girls clutch their keys and pepper sprays or pretend to be on the phone when walking alone..". My story "Bird Girl' in Mslexia Issue 85, runner-up in the Flash Fiction Competition judged by Kathy Fish |
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"reading this poem will make you the kind of person mirrors smile at approvingly..." my poem 'false advertising' forthcoming in WHAT THE MOON WAS TOLD edited by Janice Dempsey Published 1st May 2020 |
"The dragon was a problem.
Everything else up to this point had gone according to plan...
The thorny vines with their poisonous blossoms, those hadn’t been a match for him and his trusty sword: he had slashed them into submission. He had braved the moat, scaled the castle walls, not without effort or injury, but certainly with unwavering confidence.
Somehow, he had expected things to be easy once he had managed all that, once he was inside, once he was standing in front of her enchanted bed, lips puckered.
Kiss the sleeper, break the spell, wedding bells. Now, however, there was the dragon.
Dragons live to guard things. It’s their destiny. People have used them to guard treasure for centuries. This one was only a small, scrappy thing, thin and long, its scarlet scales impenetrable like chainmail. It had curled up on the sleeping girl’s pillow, and it had apparently decided that its job was to guard the girl’s innocence with its own eternal life.
Of course he had tried to stab it, that was his primal instinct - which was also why he no longer had a weapon, his sword shattered into pieces at the first attempt. Then he had tried to bribe the creature with gold coins from his pockets. The dragon had only stared at him, its golden eyes unblinking. Now he was trying to simply ignore it, and go in for the kiss regardless. But this was the worst strategy of them all, because now he had made the dragon angry.
It hissed and bared its fangs in warning, and when he did not back off, it spewed a scorching cloud of green fire in his direction. The heat and noxious fumes were enough to make him scramble into the corner of the room. He tried to still his racing heart. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do. He did not cry, because no one had taught him how to. And he did not change his mind and go home, because that was not a thing one was allowed to do in his world. He had come to kiss the sleeping girl, this stranger, this was his quest, and he would die rather than give up. The small dragon was not one to suffer fools, and it knew what you have to do if you are small and vicious and in love. So it did.
When what once had been a prince and a hero was a mere wisp of smoke and ashes, the sleeping girl smiled without opening her eyes. She reached out a hand to pet the dragon’s scaly head. It nestled back against her soft skin, draped its tail around her slender neck and sighed, as they both drifted back into timeless sleep, happily ever after."
My Fairy Tale Flash
'Love Conquers All' in Enchanted Conversations
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"I hear your silence transform on the other side of the wall who has a mother?" My poem 'family talk' in Strange Horizons (also available as a poetry podcast) |
- "...to live by a river or a lake of silver
- to own a boat and to float
- through pearl-strings of afternoons...."
- 'To Live by a River' in About Place
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"The monster moves in unceremoniously. It is simply there under your sofa, when yesterday it was not..." My short story 'The Monster' on Manawaker's Flash Fiction Podcast |
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"look up: here I am my love can you see me waving? no of course not all you see is a pale oval in your sky" my poem 'writer in residence' in Abyss & Apex |
"...we will not identify a lie/
when it unfurls its tendrils like poison/
ivy..."
My poem 'truth or' in
The London Reader Summer 2018 Issue
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"There is something I would like to tell you tonight. A secret of sorts. Come a bit closer. I’m going to have to whisper...." My story 'A Lesson In Saying And Not Saying' in "Changelings & Fairy Rings' from Three Drops Press |
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"...and the men here are boys with tousled hair and tea-steeped voices…" My poem 'Sehnsucht' shortlisted in the 2019 Live Canon International Poetry Competition (judged by Zaffar Kunial) Anthology available here. |
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"We came in from the dark, and on our night-time walk we had seen so many spooky black trees that ghosts seemed a real possibility..." My poem 'Tiny Choirboy', for which I won the 2018 Hammond House International Poetry Prize. Anthology available here |
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"...I was always going to be a punctual baby…" My poem 'The Clockmaker's Daughter' shortlisted in the Live Canon International Poetry Competition (judged by Liz Berry) Anthology available here. My poem 'The Clockmaker's Daughter' performed by Nichole Bird (Live Canon Ensemble) |
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"we might call you magpies for all you’ve taken from us but for everything you took you also left something behind like those birds who trade gold rings for forgotten feathers..." My poem 'give and take' first published in the spring 2019 issue of Tigershark |
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'The Haughty Gardener' first published by allitera in 'hingerissen in eurer mitte', an anthology of female poets |
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'three lessons',
a tiny poem in response to a popular book,
first published in Little Rose Magazine
in March 2018
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"It made her happy to see me eat. It made me happy to watch her cook... She never tried to teach me, and I never thought to ask. Until it was too late..." My short story "The Sad Tagine", winner of the Book a Break Short Story Competition |
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"....Ich aber kämme
meine widergespenstischen Locken
süffisant lächelnd,
wie einst die Lorelei..."
'10 Years - Words and Question Marks',
bilingual chapbook publication
with Sophia Heyland,
available from the
Oxford Poetry Library Catalogue
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I see you fall. You plunge from the desk and your white glass moon orb lampshade shatters. An inexplicable suicide... My flash fiction story Shard Luck on Reflex Fiction |
"My back is itching.
I think I’m growing wings."
'I dream of sharks again'
(an older story from 2014)
up on Isis Lit
