Liars' League

Ballerinas Across the Andes by Owen Booth

Ballerinas Across the Andes MP3

Read by Adam Diggle

We lost the first girl before we even got on the boat

We’d been stuck out on the Argentinean pampas for a week, waiting for the steamer that was going to take us up the river. We spent our days sitting on the hotel porch drinking pisco sours and staring into the vast landscape as the ballerinas smoked cigarettes and told obscene Russian folk tales.

 

The Swan by Caroline Greene

The Swan MP3

Read by Greg Page

I been fishing this lake since I were knee-high to a water boatman. Perch is what I usually catch. The way they hook on and come out all red-finned furious, all wide-eyed and shiny-striped – it’s magnificent, in its way. People ask me, what is it about fishing? But as soon as I get into it, they turn away again, bored like. Well, I seen a thing lately that would keep them listening for a little while longer.

  

Naked by David McGrath

Naked MP3 (NSFW)

Read by Charlotte Worthing

The prospect of naked women was why Leary sat naked on his bicycle surrounded by a battalion of dick. There was dick everywhere—big brown dick, little seahorse dick, monstrous horse-dick, grower-not-shower dick, bendy dick, worn out and broken dick, wrinkly and grey dick, up-and-coming dick, fat dick, skinny dick, long dick, short and stubby dick—everywhere he looked—dick. 

 

Cages by Joanne L. M. Williams

 Cages MP3 

Read by Susan Moisan

I didn’t decide to be a monster. I didn’t even know I was one at first; and sometimes I miss those days. I’ve never killed anyone, in armour or otherwise, or captured anyone, virginal or otherwise. My family are herbivores. No one ever believes that: I think it’s the teeth. Or the scales. But I am a monster; I must be, because here I am in chains in this specially-made dungeon. Made for those like me. I came quietly when they brought me here. I almost regret that now; how docile I was then.

 

Karma by Stephanie Brann

Karma MP3

Read by Sarah Feathers

This landscape’s white, hard, unrelenting, slippery, without shade or vegetation. His feet skid wildly, searching for purchase on the shiny surface. A strange surface, now he looks more closely. It is not entirely white. There are faint swirls of colour within: a pattern like the memory of veins.

He is not himself. If he is not himself, then who the hell is he? Where was he before?

 

City Girl by Melanie White

City Girl MP3  

Read by Grace Cookey-Gam

An hour outside Napier, the Art Deco town in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay, there is a sheep farm snuggled in the green crevices of a landscape like an upturned egg carton. Beyond the rounded peaks and ridges of the steep earth-folds, the dark blue of the Pacific glints beneath a southern sun, beneath a sky as clean as a bedsheet freshly washed and blown out smooth.

 

 

Beauty & Beast stories for Tue 12 August!

 

Poster artwork by August's Artist of the Month Kirsty Bexon

 

BEAUTY & BEAST LINE-UP

We've sorted the fair maidens from the foul monsters for our 12th August Beauty & Beast night, and it's time to share the fairytale ending with you all! Check out the podcast of the night here.

 

For beauties we have trapped princesses, naked cyclists, naive tourists and Russian ballerinas, whereas our beasts include stallions, stag beetles, llamas, swans and a real live dragon. It's like methadone for Game of Thrones addicts, so see you at the Phoenix for some fierce fiction on Tuesday 12th. As usual tickets are £5 on the door, which opens at 7pm for a 7.30 start. 

 

WINNING STORIES

Cages by Joanne L. M. Williams, read by Susan Moisan

Naked by David McGrath, read by Charlotte Worthing

Karma by Stephanie Brann, read by Sarah Feathers

The Swan by Caroline Greene, read by Greg Page

Ballerinas Across the Andes by Owen Booth, read by Adam Diggle

City Girl by Melanie White, read by Grace Cookey-Gam