Liars' League

Submit to our HEADS & TAILS Short Story Competition - FREE ENTRY - £100 First Prize - Deadline SUNDAY 11th JUNE

 

FREE TO ENTER COMPETITION in partnership with TSS Publishing:

DEADLINE: Sunday June 11th. The winner announcement and prize reading event will take place on Tuesday July 11th at our usual venue of  The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London.

HEADS & TAILS is our competition theme ... so what are we looking for? First and foremost, fantastic storytelling. Secondly, stories which are relevant to the theme. What do we mean by this? Well, you could write about heads of state, egghead intellectuals, brains in jars or animal tails; tailspins and tail-chasers; coin tosses, games of chance and literal or metaphorical snakes-and-ladders. Creative interpretations of heads and/or tails are welcome!

Liars’ League & TSS Publishing Short Story Competition: brief details

Liars’ League and TSS Publishing are combining forces for a themed short story competition and literary evening on Tuesday 11^th July 2017.

Entry is free.

1st prize: £100.

2^nd & 3^rd: Read by LL actors & published on www.TheShortStory.co.uk. Free entry for author and a guest, plus free drinks (author only!)

Three winners will be read on a special Liars’ League evening on Tuesday July 11th, followed by a Q&A discussion with one or more of the winning authors.

Videos and a podcast of the winning stories will be published on the Liars’ League website and the stories will be features on TSS Publishing.

Judges: Katy Darby and Liam Hogan of Liars' League, and Rupert Dastur of TSS Publishing (The Short Story.co.uk)

Duello Crapula by Joel Blackledge

Duello Crapula MP3

Read by Cliff Chapman

Henry’s car rumbled as it passed over the cattle grid on the southern border of his estate. He clutched the leather seats either side of him, leant forward into his protruding belly and emitted a low, involuntary groan. He burped in a descending glissando and the stale taste of cognac ballooned into his mouth. His chauffeur glanced curiously at the rear view mirror, to which Henry returned a woozy but stern glare of his own.

Jackson, Henry’s saturnine major-domo, was looking over some documents in the passenger seat. He tilted his head to call to Henry without turning back.

“Feeling all right, sir?” he asked in his familiar, motherly brogue.

Snake Pit by Joshua James Jordan

Snake Pit MP3

Read by Grace Cookey-Gam

The crowd stomps in one booming heartbeat. A ruddy patch stains the middle of the sand-caked arena floor. I’m wearing a helmet and almost no armour with barely enough clothes to cover me.

The Viper strides through the other entrance with his sword raised and the people cheer for him as they always would. He lifts off his helmet, which he’s never done, and tosses it into the mob. With grey streaked through his hair, the leather skin of his face sags compared to when we first met.

My parents had died and I was sold off to cover debts, like a sheep or a chair. Just another piece of inventory to balance the books. My owner eyed me from head to toe, thinking aloud how to maximize profits of my ownership, when the Viper happened by and laughed.

Death in the Drawing Room by Alan Graham

Death in the Drawing Room MP3

Read by Louisa Gummer

I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. “You,” I say out loud, “are an innocent woman.” I take a good, hard look at my reflection. Do I look truly innocent? Maybe my blood red lipstick is a touch on the vibrant side? I could possibly do with showing a little less collarbone.

All of the suspects in the murder investigation have been told to assemble in the drawing room at two. It is now three minutes past. My thinking is that it might be an idea to arrive slightly late. It would be the guilty who’d be desperate to appear keen and arrive early.

I tone down my make-up and don a plain and unthreatening neckerchief. After one final look at the angelic face in the mirror, I slowly make my way to the drawing room. Given the size of Grandchester Manor it’s quite a walk.

Sick Face by LMA Bauman-Milner

Sick Face MP3


Read by Lois Tucker

Did you ever have a day when you were just sick of your own face?  It comes out of the blue: you see some random stranger and the face they wear is so perfect in proportion, complexion, structure, that you realise your face is a clunky mess in comparison. A Picasso to their Rossetti. And for half an hour, half a day, half a moment, you wish you had someone else’s face.

Stare at your face in the mirror, I dare you. Not just to shave or put in contacts or check for spots. I mean, really look at it: dissect your face. You think: I can’t possibly look like that. You think: I’m younger/less wrinkly. You tell yourself: don’t think about the lies those eyes have told. Look at it long enough, and it becomes that of a stranger.

Intuitive to the Stars by John Istel

Intuitive to the Stars MP3

Read by Silas Hawkins

   Elsie opens the refrigerator. Opens the vegetable crisper. Closes it. Opens the other crisper, where we keep fruit. Closes it.

   I say, “He was more elderly than I imagined.”

   Elsie re-opens the first crisper and pulls out an old bag of pre-mixed salad greens, old enough that brown juices have gathered in a bottom corner of the plastic.

   I say, “I had never seen him. A salt and pepper beard, right? Trimmed. Looks like a nickel-and-dime Sigmund Freud, no bigger than a tobacco store Indian.”

Balanced on the Blade by Aileen O'Farrell

Balanced on the Blade MP3

Read by Katy Darby

If you want to blame anyone, blame her. 

Miss Manson won't let me leave early, the old cow.  She knows I’m the most reliable of all the Saturday girls but no, not even 15 minutes. That precious quarter hour that would allow me to run, breath burning my lungs, across O'Connell Bridge and up to Stephens Green to make the St Kevin's Bus.  I tell her if I don’t make it then it's the slow train to Rathnew and I’ll miss my lift to the youth hostel.  But she just draws her lips into a thin bow, lipstick leaking into the lines above her mouth. She pats the back of her Elnetted hair.

Snip.  Her scissors slice through the thick plastic wrapper on the new ladies’ foundation garments.

"Sure, if I let you off, they'd all be at me to go early."