Liars' League

Latest event: ORDER & CHAOS

NEXT EVENT: Tuesday August 10th - WOMEN & GIRLS: Our 5th annual celebration of stories about and by women & girls. N.B. For the avoidance of doubt, we are ONLY seeking submissions from female authors writing female protagonists for this theme. (Our usual male:female submission ratio is about 2:1 so this is our way of helping to redress the imbalance, in case you're curious ...)

 

To reserve tickets for the Women & Girls event, please see below for instructions on how to book and pay. Tickets are £5 per person, Maximum number of people at any one table is 6, but you can request adjacent tables when booking.

 

LATEST EVENT: ORDER & CHAOS (see below)

In the beginning, the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the spirit of live fiction moved over the face of the waters ... And then the Liars got all their votes in, and a new order was come! It was rich with naked hikers and chaos Empresses and cats on Mars, mighty with evil angels and model buses, and it was GOOD.

 

WINNING STORIES for ORDER & CHAOS

Chaos Reigns by E P Henderson, read by Gloria Sanders

Frozen by Todd Wells new author, read by Sophie Cartman

The Last Cat on Mars by Quintin Forrest, read by Al Woodhall

The Capture of Whitehall by David McGrath, read by the author

Certain Promises, Certain Threats by Rhys Timson, read by Oliver Yellop

 

Billy's Ghost Dug by Emma Grae

Read by Silas Hawkins

Lockdoon’s gettin tae me. Ma dug, Neville, took a turn fur the worst efter tannin a fit-lang tube o Jaffa cakes, and noo ah’m well and truly oan ma tod.

Neville wis the apple o ma eye. He wis a mongrel, who’d black fur dotted wi white patches that made the wee bugger look like he wis always wearin a suit. He wis a sleekit bastart, and treated me like wan big tit efter he left his mammy a few weeks too early. But fur aw his tricks and licks, Neville could dae nae wrang in ma eyes.

‘Alexa,’ ah say, ‘Pretend tae be a dug.’

He is Coming by Callum Jacobs

Read by Claire Louise Amias

He is coming.

The poster had appeared during the night. It had been pasted onto the front door of the town hall, not quite straight, as though it had been done in a hurry. It didn’t say anything else. There was no extraneous information, no address to contact for further details, no indication of who ‘He’ was.

Most people who saw the poster assumed it was referring to Jesus, and that this was Reverend Sweeny’s doing, the latest attempt to fill the dusty pews in the village church on Sunday morning when most people were still snoring in their beds. So most people ignored it.

It was only Miss Hazelwick who thought it might be something else. She thought it might be something else because she’d seen a sign. Just over a week before the poster appeared, Miss Hazelwick had been walking to the post office on her lunch break, to send a parcel to her sister, when she’d seen a fox running backwards.

Guru by Fiona Salter

Read by Paul Clarke

“Have you seen this?”  Canon Stephen is waving the Western Morning News.  “Harry Mount is planning a solstice vigil on Belstone Tor.”

“Remind me,” drawls the Archdeacon “Is this the one off Bake Off? Or the one who was in the Communards?” 

“Neither. This is the one joining with Druids for an EarthSong vigil.”

“The rise of the celebrity priest. I blame myself,” preens the Archdeacon. “I suppose he’ll say it’s ecumenical.”

“If it was with the Methodists, yes, with Druids, not so much.”

Heroes & Fools by Brian Kelly

Read by Jeremiah O'Connor

Never meet your heroes. That’s what they say, innit?

Every Thursday at eight, the entire neighbourhood directing their applause towards our gaff. Bingo wings flapping up and down the terrace. Wooden spoons banging on pots. A few frustrated football fans letting off flares.

Now, I’m not saying she wasn’t sick or nothing. But the woman smokes forty a day. Has done since I was a nipper. Plus, our gaff is only fifty meters from the North Circ. So yeah maybe she had Corona, but all I’m saying is - there were other candidates.

The Dragon, the Knight and the Rabbi by Elizabeth Hopkinson

Read by Stephen Butterton. Inspired by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's Twitter thread "Fantastic Beasts and Whether to Eat Them."

"I'm not sure about this," said the knight.

The dragon rolled his eyes. They were bloodshot around the edges. It reminded the knight of - well - blood. His blood.

"It's perfectly simple," said the dragon. "You go to the rabbi and you ask him which creatures are kosher and which aren't. I've made a list." He held it up for the knight to see. It was skewered by one claw and slightly singed at the edges.

"I've never been to the Jewish Quarter before." The knight scraped one toe in the ashes at the edge of the fire.

"You came into my Jewish quarter, didn't you?"

Ordinary Men Must Die by GC Perry

Read by Lin Sagovsky

“I am dying.” The Emperor is seated atop a vast throne that shimmers in fitful torchlight. Two fleshy eunuchs, naked except for loincloths, fan him with slow, steady strokes.

“The Emperor’s soul is eternal,” says the Wise Man prostrated before the seated figure, his forehead pressed to the cold marbled floor. “We are told this in the Old Stories. The Emperor shall live forever in the Palace of the Most Honourable Ancestors, to be reunited with your father and his father before him, and all our Emperors right back to the First Emperor Most High.”