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Duets - Launching tomorrow!
Tomorrow - the 17th October - the truly unique Duets goes on sale... Eight stories each co-written by two authors. Featuring: Eley...
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May 251 min read
Announcing: The Unreliable Nature Writer - 6th June
A dark, delicious, dreamy immersion in a much hotter way of living...
123 views3 comments
Apr 11 min read
Scratch A4 Summer '24 - Submissions Open
Submissions are now open for the summer Scratch A4 until 25 May... Enter your < 1000 word story for the Summer '24 event on Saturday...
327 views1 comment
Mar 21 min read
The Reverse Engineering series turns two!
Woah... that went quick! It was two years ago this month that Scratch Books published Reverse Engineering! To celebrate, we're offering...
64 views1 comment
Feb 1018 min read
‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ by Ambrose Bierce
Introduction by Darran Anderson One of the appeals of poetry is its ability to decelerate time until life appears as strange as it really...
313 views0 comments
Feb 316 min read
'The Gentleman's Companion' by Machado de Assis
Introduction by James Young I first read Machado de Assis in 2006, when the teacher of the Português Para Estrangeiros class at Paraíba...
101 views1 comment
Jan 2713 min read
'Her Letters' by Kate Chopin
Introduction by Carrie Beth Esposito 'Her Letters' by Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman unable to burn letters to and from her lover...
103 views0 comments
Jan 209 min read
'A Just Man In Sodom' by Caradoc Evans
Introduction by Joshua Jones I often find a certain comfort in the depraved. Like shining a torch under the bed and having a good...
90 views0 comments
Jan 133 min read
'Monday or Tuesday' by Virginia Woolf
Introduction by Łukasz Drobnik Virginia Woolf’s “Monday or Tuesday”, the titular story from her 1921 collection, eludes categorisation....
122 views0 comments
Dec 16, 202333 min read
'Fallmerayer the Stationmaster' by Joseph Roth
Introduction by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce Roth wrote this story in 1933, soon after he and his partner – Andrea Manga Bell – had fled Germany...
166 views0 comments
Dec 9, 202312 min read
'America 1918' by Maria Messina
Introduction by Jayson Carcione This was the summer Sicily burned, another summer of lives lost in a graveyard sea – and I keep going...
87 views0 comments
Dec 3, 20231 min read
Buy Scratch Books - Winter Sale!
For all friends and family interested in how fiction works, buy 'em the Reverse Engineering books... At a special 30% off, all December!...
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Nov 25, 202328 min read
'To Build A Fire' by Jack London
Introduction by Livi Michael ‘To Build a Fire’ Is a story about a man who sets out in the freezing Yukon winter, accompanied only by a...
132 views0 comments
Nov 18, 202310 min read
'The Tell-tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe
Introduction by Jacqueline Doyle Edgar Allan Poe insisted that every great short story focuses on a “single effect,” and that every word...
115 views0 comments
Nov 11, 202327 min read
'The Inconsiderate Waiter' by J.M. Barrie
Introduction by Cath Barton The Scottish novelist and playwright James Matthew Barrie was appointed a baronet by King George V in 1913....
107 views0 comments
Nov 4, 20238 min read
'A Garden by the Sea' by Forrest Reid
Introduction by Chris Wright In his 1981 essay, Escaping from Belfast, V.S. Pritchett wrote at length about a forgotten Ulster writer by...
125 views0 comments
Oct 20, 202310 min read
'The Lumber Room' by Saki
Introduction by Fiona McKay Many years ago, when I was in school, we had an anthology of short stories, Exploring English 1. It was my...
130 views0 comments
Oct 13, 202374 min read
'White Nights' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Introduction by Luca Serra I believe certain pieces of fiction find you when you most need it. This was the case for me with White...
2,444 views0 comments
Oct 6, 202319 min read
'Laura Silver Bell' by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Introduction by Rebekah King A young woman, demurely dressed, is looking wistfully away from the viewer at a sinister figure who holds...
166 views0 comments
Sep 29, 20233 min read
'The Hill' from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
Introduction by Stu Hennigan This is a real curio; a collection of free verse poems in which over two hundred people who have lived and...
261 views0 comments
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