Mathilde Alanic: Shine! (part twenty)

Posted by ractrose on 3 Dec 2020 in Fiction, Novels, Translation |No Comments

Mathilde Alanic Shine! (part twenty)                           “We admit it!” answered Mme Fougerays coldly. “Marriage is a lottery, that is understood. All games of hazard have their traps.” She spoke with a boldness near cynicism, unafraid of her known history making the cause of […]

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The Irrepressible: Third Allied Forces

Posted by ractrose on 2 Dec 2020 in Art, Poems |No Comments

      The Folly Allied Forces         The Irrepressible     Jesmine, so much the counterpoint to her headstrong sister, had kept to her tuffet by the fireplace, demure with her teacup. Maude, as she would, spoke at once, the moment Mrs. Davenant rejoined them. ‘Oh, tell, Margaret! You can’t mean […]

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Marjorie Bowen: The Sword Decides! (part two)

Posted by ractrose on 1 Dec 2020 in Fiction, Novels |No Comments

Marjorie Bowen The Sword Decides! (part two)                     Konrad dropped the curtain and advanced. The golden plumage on the brow of Andreas shimmered as he raised his head. “Good evening, Prince.” Konrad scowled at the girl. “I must speak with you.” “Well, do.” Slowly Andreas sat […]

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Flash Fiction: Peckish

Posted by ractrose on 30 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories |No Comments

      Peckish     “I don’t try to get out of things. I try my best not to get into things.” The weasel had dropped by, as he put it, coming on at first by a peristaltic rippling over a basswood’s roots. The roots canopied water pooling naturally between a fallen trunk and […]

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My Blog Week: November 22 to November 28

Posted by ractrose on 29 Nov 2020 in Announcements |No Comments

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   Ageing Brats         Back in the mid-sixties, let’s say, two children were born. We’ll name them Luann and Benji. Their parents had an original view of child-rearing: […]

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Celebrated (part ten)

Posted by ractrose on 28 Nov 2020 in Fiction, Novels |No Comments

Novella Celebrated (part ten)                 Murmurs, hopeful and wary. On the safe inside, among private certainties, was this: that these scruples made no difference. He didn’t care about plagiarism…and didn’t care, not from misplaced fellow-feeling, but because he had come to it, from years of debating forced alternatives. […]

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Flash Fiction: Fallen Short

Posted by ractrose on 27 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories |No Comments

Flash Fiction Fallen Short                               Darian thought an attic window black as that could not be empty behind the glass. But no one who’d broken the others could pitch a stone to reach so far. She wondered if this were true. […]

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Mathilde Alanic: Shine! (part nineteen)

Posted by ractrose on 26 Nov 2020 in Fiction, Novels, Translation |No Comments

Mathilde Alanic Shine! (part nineteen)                             Art critic, contributor to Foyer, reader for the Voix de Paris, M. Laffenel had often met the secretary of M. Conan, and showed to her an amiable sympathy. Annie, taken into his confidence, smiled at the […]

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Sand (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 25 Nov 2020 in Art, Poems |No Comments

      Sand   doll-forms at craft shops bald sightless blockheads you should watch tutorials on airbrushing rose    into cheeks think of a doll for every ethnicity the minefield mechanics of noticing shades     of blush Populate a scheme to become a catalogue name with burials in a fold and tab-together box they were smoothed […]

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Marjorie Bowen: The Sword Decides! (part one)

Posted by ractrose on 24 Nov 2020 in Fiction, Novels |No Comments

Marjorie Bowen The Sword Decides! (part one)                         Chapter One The Letter     The turquoise of a summer sky was fading into evening purple. Golden above the Adriatic Sea glittered the first stars, while the olives below changed from silver to grey. The […]

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