Stacey Thomas is a contributor to Bad Form Review. She is an alumna of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course where she was awarded the Clare Mackintosh Scholarship for Black Writers. In 2021, she was announced as one of the three winners of HarperCollins’s inaugural Killing It Competition for Undiscovered Writers.
The Revels is her debut novel.
Below, you can watch the second part of our interview with Stacey:
(more…)
Stacey Thomas is a contributor to Bad Form Review. She is an alumna of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course where she was awarded the Clare Mackintosh Scholarship for Black Writers. In 2021, she was announced as one of the three winners of HarperCollins’s inaugural Killing It Competition for Undiscovered Writers.
The Revels is her debut novel.
Below, you can watch the first part of our interview with Stacey:
(more…)
By Sarah Elliott
From Winnie to Willow to Wanda, women with magical powers feature in films, TV series and stories throughout the ages. Synonyms for the witch rise or wane in popularity over time including enchantress, sorceress, hag, necromancer, wiccan, and crone.
I met my first witch in a storybook. I can’t remember which story it was, but I do remember that she was old, hag-like, cruel, crooked-nosed and had an evil cackle. Every witch I ever came across since then was the same, until Glinda, the Witch of the North portrayed in the film musical The Wizard of Oz (inspired by the books by L. Frank Baum). Glinda was a witch with a serious glow-up!
(Fun fact: The Wicked Witch of the West was named Elphaba in Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked (1995). Her name was based upon the initials of L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), The initials “L.F.B.” each gave one syllable to the name: El-pha-ba.)
Our wonderful writerly imaginations have spawned a whole spectrum of witches. Like many things in society, perceptions and definitions change over time. This is certainly the case with the witch. Look at the definitions below. Which one fits the witch in your story?
By Sarah Elliott
You know those people who never ruffle anyone’s feathers? You know, the ones who sit on the fence, always wanting to walk the hallowed middle path. Well, Anthony Ferguson is not that person. Self-confessed left-hand path walker, prolific author and an advocate of all the spookiness Down Under, Anthony is about to publish his first short story collection, Rest in Pieces.
Let’s find out what makes him tick as he makes us twitch, wriggle and squirm with his stimulating use of word and story.
By Sarah Elliott
Never has it been more relevant to learn some new collective nouns. I mean, what do you call a group of vampires? Or harpies or basilisks? Strange creatures are found in stories, poems, films, architecture, and of course under your bed!
Fantastical creatures – a term more recently made popular in film titles but encompassing a whole range of any ‘living’ being that is deemed a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to define them as:
An imaginary, strange living thing (not a plant) most likely created in the mind of a wonderful writer!
We will peer through our spy glasses and zoom in on distinct types of fantastical creatures: human/animal hybrid and all-out beast modes! But first, let’s secure our foundations and take the DeLorean back to where the earliest fantastical creatures raised their heads (or multiple heads).
If we’re thinking of ancient and early beginnings, it’s always a safe bet to go back to Ancient Egypt. Here we can find still standing, evidence of a fantastical creature – the Sphinx! With the head of a human and the body of a lion, the Sphinx stands for wisdom and knowledge. Greek mythology associates it with guarding the entrances to temples and only allowing passage after a riddle is answered. The Greek sphinx also has the wings of a bird! Existing before 2500 BC, it’s evident the Great Sphinx of Giza has a pretty awesome anti-ageing routine! Egyptologists are still trying to work out how old this magnificent monolith actually is.
Do you want to play a game? Brave enough to take a risk? This one is for those who, despite the underlying dread, still dare to dabble with the darkness…Two Minutes with the Devil, the latest book from horror indie writer Matt Micheli takes us back to the 80s. When imagination ran rife, creativity coursed through our veins, and we never really knew if the legends were real…
Let’s talk to Matt to find out more about Two Minutes with the Devil.
“One part Stand by Me, one part Stranger Things, Two Minutes with the Devil is one helluva fun-yet-heartbreaking thriller, a throwback to when things were good… and evil.”
By Sarah Elliott
If you fancy yourself as a 21st-century bard but you’re in an open relationship with your muse and they aren’t around right now, read on. Inspiration for poetry can be hidden or in plain sight and this article will help you spy it out.
Ink gone dry? Battery drained? No spark of poetic inspiration flying in like a superhero to come save you? Imagine, you’ve been commissioned (yes getting paid) to write a collection of poems and you can’t find any inspiration. Instagram poetry prompts are more played out than reruns of Friends. You’re worn down from workshops like a pencil top eraser and that cursed cursor keeps winking at you with zero promise of follow-through. Well, sometimes when we get stuck like this, it helps to go right back to basics – do like Maria Von Trapp and start at the very beginning. What is it you’re trying to do? Let’s start by getting clear about what a poem is.
Writers and other creatives stand out for a reason and sometimes that can be hard. Sometimes it can be just too much and we become overwhelmed.
“This is for you if you are tired of this society with all its expectations, perfectionism and pressure. Society likes our feelings nice and sanitised.”
Karen Jackson
Overwhelmed: And other words you give your power away to is the debut book from Karen Jackson, a rebel with a cause! Let’s talk to Karen about the power of words.
You can watch the video interview below:
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