TatTle – #5
The monthly newsletter from Tall and Tiny Tales
G’day TatTlers!
It’s officially summer today in Australia, and 2022 is eleven-twelfths done. I’ve been in the southern hemisphere for 20 years, but ending the year in mid-summer still doesn’t seem quite right. The year’s end for me is the quiet time when life winds down, to begin afresh in the new year – not early summer when life is just getting into its stride. And a hot Christmas? Well, that is plain weird …
📢 Call for beta readers
A weekend in Melbourne recently provided inspiration for a story, and the three-week (!) bout of COVID I brought home gave me time to write it.
The story is called Seed. It concerns the spiky friendship between two artist flatmates. He’s Sal, 43, a successful painter struggling with creative block. She’s Jelka, 28, a recent art-school graduate and street artist, hustling to make a name for herself. They’re both snarky, clever, brutally honest, foul-mouthed.
It has a sharper edge than the stories I put on Substack and probably won’t appear here.
However, I need beta readers to read it and give their honest reactions. Anybody interested? It’s about 10,000 words, 13 short chapters.
What does a beta reader do?
They read a finished story and give their opinion of it, as an unbiased reader, in as much detail as they like. The more detailed the comments, the better.
If you’d like to beta read Seed for me, please reply to this email and I’ll send you a pdf.
Heartfelt thanks to my Medium friends here who have already read the story and given me their reactions. ❤️
📚 E-book giveaways
As promised last month, I’ve put the first batch of short stories on my website coriobay.blog as free downloadable e-books. Please have a read and, if you enjoy the stories, share them with friends.
Astrid
Naming Calls
Writer’s Retreat
Many of you will have read these stories as weekly instalments on Tall and Tiny Tales. I think the experience of reading them in a more traditional book format is quite different, and I’m keen to hear your thoughts.
I’d also be interested to hear from you how the technical side of downloading the stories goes. I’ve tested the downloads on Mac and iPad, and they work fine for me. How about you?
🛠️ Works in Progress
Some of my stories lie dormant for months before sprouting into sudden growth. Seed is a case in point: the first chapter was written as a fragment a year ago, and hung around rather pointlessly until … POOOF!! There it was, a 10,000 word story.
Here are some more stories that are hanging around, waiting to go POOOF!!
Evie and Aya
Evie, an elderly blues musician, and Aya, a young international law student, strike up a friendship. Aya makes a risky choice in pursuit of funds to continue her studies, and her life spirals out of control as a ruthless and powerful man pursues her. Can Evie help – and should she? A modern crime thriller.
Tell the Bees
Technical translator and beekeeper Viviane lives in the idyllic Upper Yarra Valley with her author husband Mike. Is her sanity failing her, or are her bland neighbours really involved in a sinister conspiracy? And how far can she trust her husband? A psychological thriller.
Liar Byrd
Alice Byrd is a children’s author whose passion for storytelling was sparked in childhood by the tall tales of a family friend, ‘Uncle Bruce’ from the Land Downunder. She recalls witnessing partner abuse of this gentle man in homophobic 1970s London – and not being believed, because she was a little girl who ‘told stories’. A poignant, funny memoir.
Black Spur
In the 1850s a naïve young Austrian violin maker emigrates to Australia to seek riches in the Victorian Gold Rush. He fulfils a fortune teller’s prediction from his childhood by proving serially lucky in love. In every other aspect of life? Spectacularly the opposite. An action-packed historical comedy drama.
Each of these has the potential to become a short novel or a novella. Which one would you most like to see in print?
Thanks for reading! Have an excellent end to 2022! 🎆🎇
Steve Fendt
Author website: coriobay.blog
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