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  A Garland of Earth - From their...

  Dorothy Edwards

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  Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards was born on 7th June 1831 in Islington, London.  She was educated at home by her mother and showed early promise as a writer, publishing her first poem at the age of 7 and her first story at 12.  Thereafter several popular periodicals published her poetry, stories and articles. 
  In addition she also illustrated some of her own writings and painted scenes from books she had read.  This talent was not supported by her parents, who saw an artist’s life as scandalous.  Undeterred Amelia took up composing and performing music until a bout of typhus caused throat damage.  Other interests soon followed until, early in the 1850s, Amelia focused exclusively on writing.  Her early novels were well received, and with ‘Barbara's History’ in 1864, a work revolving around bigamy, her reputation was established.  
  Amelia’s pen was also the purveyor of ghost stories for magazines and are still anthologized as classic tales to this day. 
  In January 1851, Amelia became engaged, apparently to please her parents, but she quickly broke it off.  In reality her emotional attachments were almost exclusively with women.  From the early 1860s she lived with Ellen Drew Braysher, a widow 27 years her senior, until both women died in early 1892.  During this relationship other women also entered and left her life.  Her frequent travelling companion, Lucy Renshaw, accompanied her to Egypt in the winter of 1873 and there she found a life-changing interest in Egyptology.  Aware of increasing threats from tourism and modern development she became an advocate for their research and preservation.  
  To advance the work Amelia largely abandoned much of her writing in favour of Egyptology and even took on strenuous lecture tours to raise funds. 
  After catching influenza, Amelia Edwards, ‘the Godmother of Egyptology’ died on 15th April 1892 at Weston-super-Mare.  She was 60.

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  Clotilde Graves - A Short Story...

  Clothilde Graves

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  Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves was born on the 3rd June 1863 at Buttevant Castle, Co. Cork, to parents with military backgrounds. 
   
  At age nine, the family moved to Southsea in England for yet another military posting.  Her father’s postings gave her valuable experiences that would be put to good use in later years in some of her literary works. 
   
  She was educated at a Catholic convent in Lourdes before returning to London in 1884 to study art in Bloomsbury.  She worked part-time at the British Museum and the Royal Female School of Art and generated further income by drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers.  
   
  A few years later a chance meeting found her writing extra lyrics for a pantomime version of Puss in Boots.  She followed up with several financially successful plays, both in London and New York, and gained a measure of notoriety in one with the comparison of marriage and prostitution.   
   
  Despite her dramatic success she published her first novel in 1911 under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan which she continued to use for later works.  As well as novels and plays she published collections of short stories which glow with talent and invention. 
   
  She was an unusual figure in London society, wearing her hair short, taking on a masculine manner and cut of clothing, and smoking cigarettes in public when such traits were considered eccentric at best.  Add to this her admired collection of Chinese and Japanese trophies, her enthusiasm for fly-fishing and her riding of a tricycle and you have a perfect image of this fascinating writer. 
   
  Clotilde Graves died at the convent of Our Lady of Lourdes at Hatch End in Middlesex, on the 3rd December 1932.  She was 69. 
   
  1 - Clotilde Graves - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - Under The Electrics by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  3 - The Lost Room by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  4 - A Spirit Elopement by Clotilde Graves 
  5 - In The Fourth Dimension by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  6 - A Nocturne by Clotilde Graves writing as by Richard Dehan

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  Every Tongue Got to Confess -...

  Zora Neale Hurston

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  African-American folklore was Zora Neale Hurston's first love. Collected in the late 1920's Every Tongue Got to Confess, from the celebrated author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, is published here for the first time, beautifully performed by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. 
  Hilarious, bittersweet, and often saucy, these folk-tales provide a verdant slice of African-American life in the rural South at the turn of the twentieth century. They capture the heart and soul of the vital, independent, and creative community that so inspired Zora Neale Hurston. 
  In Every Tongue Got to Confess, Hurston records, with uncanny precision, the voices of ordinary people -and no two actors better capture this world than Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. They pay tribute to the richness of Black vernacular -- its crisp self-awareness, singular wit, and improvisational wordplay. These folk-tales reflect the joys and sorrows of the African-American experience, celebrate the redemptive power of storytelling, and showcase the continuous presence in America of an Afticanized language that flourishes to this day.Performed by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis

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  Caterpillars - From their pens...

  E F Benson

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  Edward Frederic Benson was born in Berkshire, England on 24th July 1867. 
  Educated at Marlborough and Kings College Cambridge he began his career as a writer at an early age and was published whilst still studying. 
  Benson was also a gifted athlete and represented his country at figure skating. 
  His career was prodigious and widely acknowledged.  Perhaps he is best known for his collection of novels about ‘Mapp & Lucia’ which have proved very popular throughout the decades.   
  Benson was also well regarded as a writer of ghost stories—‘spook stories’ in the then vernacular—as well as biographies.  His ghost and supernatural fiction covered a range of subjects but all were exceptionally well-written, drenched in atmosphere, riven with chills and have stood the test of popularity over the decades as testament to his literary talents.  
  Benson was never married and practised his homosexuality discreetly. 
  E F Benson died on 29th February 1940 at University College Hospital, London of throat cancer.  He was 72.

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  Burning Bones

  Miren Agur Meabe

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  WINNER OF THE TRANSLATION PRIZE LABORAL KUTXA – ETXEPARE 2023
  'Miren Agur Meabe's poetic language shades and heightens the pulse of her writing, [adding] sensuality to the wound she writes of. Her way of looking elevates her raw, sincere voice to higher ground...' – Harkaitz Cano
  'Miren Agur Meabe writes with about quiet worlds with tenderness and attention to detail, in a very sensual, almost synaesthetic way.' – Anna Blasiak, The Spanish Riveter
  'a riveting and immersive read.' – Rhianon Holley, Buzz
  In a series of short poetic narratives Burning Bones finds the writer on a remarkable journey of imagination, discovery and emotion.
  We watch the gardener gather kindling to prepare a bonfire. 'So many branches,' I tell Gwen. 'They look like a pile of bones... I have a feeling that's what I'm doing too, carrying a bundle of bones from place to place. And I don't just mean the bones in my body.'
  From a flooded river stranding a dolphin on a sandbank to a sailor afraid to venture onto land while a first kiss is cut tragically short Meabe plays with the expectations and form of stories while offering a rhapsody of reflection and reinvention.
  Expertly translated into English by Amaia Gabantxo – arguably the most prestigious contemporary Basque to English translator – Burning Bones is a companion piece to Miren Agur Meabe's A Glass Eye, a collection of short stories that complement the universe of Meabe's novel about absence as an engine for creation, about what we make out of the things we lose – her eye, in the author's case, or love, or the innocence of youth.

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  Nine Under Par

  Tim Miller

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  Nine stories, sprawled out like nine holes. Always the same, but always different. As with the temperature, wind, and visibility, the leaves and the grass. So it is with the golfer, the reader. Young and old. Happy and sad. Looking forward, looking back... nine chances. Places to seek, alone or together, with friends, family, ghosts and strangers. Success and failure. Love and loneliness. Birdies and bogeys, lies and truth, but always ourselves. 
  What if Jesus Christ showed up for a round of twilight? What will the last golf match on Earth be like? These and other questions are answered in NINE UNDER PAR, Tim Miller's first collection of golf-themed short stories.

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