Author: Simon John Cox

100 Word Challenge #42Prompt: piece must contain the words 'liberty', 'empire', 'apple', 'yellow' and 'enormous'I watch the television from the hotel bed, my yellow robe pulled tight. The sun here is tiny, like an apple hanging from a branch. It is a different sun, cold and foreign.Grainy images flicker on the screen: masked faces, assault… Continue reading 100WC #42 – In Absentia

I met three new writers from Tunbridge Wells last night. Daniel Huckfield is writing a biography of 19th century Tunbridge Wells-based blasphemer, anarchist and gramophone entrepreneur Henry Seymour, and blogging about it as he goes.Tom Revell writes a very entertaining blog called Without A Corset. Richard Coleman is a science teacher who writes poetry at… Continue reading Three new Tunbridge Wells Writers

100 Word Challenge #41Prompt: [picture of bones]Under hedges laid like rope the sleeping giants lie. Washed and buried these ancients wait, silenced by time and lost in stories of the past. Above them blow the sorrowful winds, above them walk the lonely hearts, and the restless men who pull them from the rocks know nothing… Continue reading 100WC #41 – What Will Come

100 Word Challenge #40Prompt: RubyJack So I go to the basement where I know they'll bring you an it’s a filthy Dallas mornin an there’s pills in my belly an the ugly lil .38 snub in my pocket is black an cold as sin an there’s police everywhere so you must be comin an I… Continue reading 100WC #40 – Jack

100 Word Challenge #39Prompt: ....I'm exhausted. Shut the door behind you.... Those Who Fail“I’m exhausted.”“Shut the door behind you.”“What?” he says. The rain outside makes everything seem too close. The house feels like a womb.“I need you to leave,” I say.“I’m not going anywhere until we’ve fixed this.” He is a knight, a hero. Why… Continue reading 100WC #39 – Those Who Fail

Following on from 2011's Harlan Ellison-endorsed, charity-friendly Kindle All Stars short story anthology, in 2012 the Kindle All Stars will be putting together another anthology. The theme is "cryptozoology", and submissions will be accepted throughout October. That's ages away, so you've got plenty of time to come up with a decent short story about the… Continue reading I don’t know whether the plural of Bigfoot is Bigfoots or Bigfeet

I've just written a post over at the Tunbridge Wells Writers blog about locations in fiction:A sense of place - locations in fictionHead over there if you want to share your favourite fictional locations, to discuss whether it's OK for a novelist to change a real place, and to let us know if there are… Continue reading A sense of place – Tunbridge Wells Writers blog

My fellow Tunbridge Wells Writer Jess Chakravorty has a new website - Syllable - in which she is showcasing some of her poetry. I'm no poetry buff but I think she's really rather good, and I recommend you get over there and take a read.

When you start writing fiction one of the most common aphorisms that you're likely to hear is "write what you know". It makes sense, but I get the impression from a lot of what I read that people take it far too literally. Of course if you have expertise or experience in a particular field… Continue reading Write what you know, even when it’s about giant killer moths