Liars' League

Birth Plan by Uschi Gatward

Click to play BIRTH PLAN

Read by Beverley Longhurst

Birth partner — husband only. No-one else to be admitted until post-natal ward.

Midwives — would prefer female midwives and other medical staff.

Positions for labour — would prefer active labour if possible to enable me to work with gravity.

Monitoring — where monitoring is necessary we would like explanations as to why it is being done.

Let There Be Tigers by Sara Corris

Read by Andrea Hall

I’m not thinking about you, Ian.

I haven’t spent this sleepless night playing “How Soon Is Now” on a continuous loop and alternately missing you so much it makes my chest ache, and wanting you here so I can scream at you until my throat bleeds.

#

I check whether anyone’s gotten back to me on my manuscript. Nada.

If I get my book published, he’ll like me again. Wanna fuck me and stuff. Or at least talk to me.

 

Just Not Cricket by Sophie Bloom

Just Not Cricket MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

I’d genuinely decided there were no nice men left in London, possibly the world, before I met Mark: that they’d all been snapped up or kidnapped or something. And then Mark happened.

Full disclosure: I’d been stood up the night we met. It was Friday and the pub was heaving: I was glaring into my phone, thinking about hunting down Johnny No-Show from Tinder and possibly killing him with an axe, when Mark asked if he could join me. I didn’t really want company, not even Johnny No-Show – in fact, especially not that prick – but I mumbled OK and he sat down. 

Good Enough to Eat by Helen Morris

Good Enough to Eat MP3

Read by Patsy Prince - full podcast here

I fell in love with him over pudding. Not dessert. I am not a woman who would eat a dessert. I would desert a dessert. I am a pudding woman. A woman who wields a spoon, not a fork. Forks can fork off.

Things had started well. He had chosen the pork terrine as a starter.  A brave and bold choice.  I like a man who isn’t afraid of a good bit of pork.  He ate it with gusto. I smiled.

Practically Family by Rosa Muller

Read by Claire Louise Amias

If we were all being honest, none of us expected the nanny to actually stay for Christmas.

One of my bad habits (amongst a few), is letting my mouth run away with itself. James and I had got stuck into slightly more cherry brandy than was strictly necessary, as it was Christmas, although technically it was still November – the 8^th.  When I walked unsteadily past the nanny’s bedroom I heard a low, animalistic howl.

I could hardly ignore it, could I? What if a werewolf had broken in and was savaging the poor girl? Surely I would be failing in my duty of care?

Just a Nice Family Christmas by E. P. Henderson

Read by Lucy Mabbitt

“Who’ll be Mother?” Jess wonders as we flip through her extensive wardrobe.

It’s more of a relief than anything that none of us are seeing our folks again this year – nobody’s exactly family-orientated, and enduring the usual round of resentments, tensions, arguments and passive-aggressive regiftings doesn’t appeal. So Jess, TJ and me are having Friends are Family Christmas in our flat, where nobody can critically examine our lives, question our choices or, crucially, tell us we’re drinking too much.

“Is that a wig?” asks TJ. He extracts a blonde mop, frisking it about on his spread fingers like a permed Muppet.

“Hey,” cries Jess, “my Halloween costume!”

“Sexy Killer Clown wasn’t it?” I remember.

Baking Day by Angela Sherlock

Baking Day MP3

Read by Lin Sagovsky

The bank slopes gently to the river so there is no danger for the girls. Mamma has said they may play there while she is gone into Mullinvane but they must not go out upon the ice. She has taken the pony and trap and Dada is away up the fields somewhere, so they have promised to be on their best behaviour.

   But it is not the river bank they want today. That is a summer place, for building dams and fortifications of pebbles. The river bank is for dressing down. Off with the boots and stockings, skirts tucked into knickers. It is for soft silt between the toes and sunlight dancing on the arcs of water they send flashing into the air.

The Fear by Emma Grae

Read by Lois Tucker

We’ve aw been there. A nicht oan the tiles. Dancin shoes oan. Tarted up like a Gregg’s donut at the front o the display. An innocent enough wee swally - or so ye hink. Then, a few hoor later, yer poundin heid goes: ‘Whit the puck did ye dae last nicht?’

The Fear. It’s a well-kenned phenomenon. But seriously whit could ye really dae and furget aboot it? It’s been playin oan a loop in ma heid aw mornin.

Ah wis at ma pal Jamie and his burd’s last nicht. It wisnae a big wan. Three drinks. Max. Then ah callt a taxi hame. Lassies cannae be too careful and aw that. Plus, the tube’s probably hoachin wi the Rhona, never mind the vomit-stained nicht bus.

Set for Life by Zannier Alejandra

Read by Keleigh Wolf

The forty-second floor office is preposterously swanky. I don’t think I have been at a place of business above third floor before. It seems the higher they get, the more luxurious they must become.

This particular office looks like something out of a TV show about sexy lawyers, saving the world one pro-bono case at the time. 

But it is not a law firm. And I’m definitely not an impossibly well-dressed lawyer. I am currently wearing a black polyester suit that I bought for a Hillary Clinton costume back in Halloween 2016. My shoes are equally unstylish and full of scrape marks, which I tried to cover up with a sharpie but it turned out to be purple highlighter.

The Pumpkin and the Vampire by Hannah Hoare

Read by Miranda Harrison

“So,” said the Vampire, tying his cape. “We’re walking, I presume?”

“We’ll take the car,” the Pumpkin said, with barely a pause.

Frowning, the Vampire turned from the mirror to study his friend. “Really? You think that’s a good idea, after last year?”

“Definitely,” said the Pumpkin. He dabbed at his make-up with a tissue. “If this party’s as wild as the one last year, we’ll be way too pissed to walk back afterwards. We’re taking the car.”

Plague of Exes, 1349 by Lauren Van Schaik

Plague of Exes 1349 MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

Lauren Van Schaik’s short fiction has been shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and The White Review Short Story Prize, published by the Cincinnati Review and performed by Liars’ League. She has an MA in Creative Writing from UEA and is working on a novel. 

 

 

Gloria Sanders trained at Drama Studio London. She regularly narrates audiobooks for the RNIB and recently joined the cast of Time Will Tell’s Dracula at Whitby Abbey. She often works as an historical interpreter at heritage sites around the country and has continued her training in clowning and historic fooling. She recently qualified as a Spanish Interpreter.

 

 

Oh Little Beast by Molly Skinner

Oh Little Beast MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson 

Alice pulled the flowers from her mother’s crystal vase and threw them, yellow and bright, into the bin. They barely made a sound as they hit the bottom – but the baby stirred all the same.

Rosy-cheeked and wide awake, it mocked the blackout blinds she’d made her husband install and stared right at her as she opened the door.

Good morning my little love, she chirped.

Swoosh. Welcome in sunlight. Swoosh. Welcome in day. Swoosh. Welcome in sweet-promise-of-another-go-around.

Read the full text of this story over at TheShortStory.co.uk

 

Molly Skinner’s work has appeared in print on her mum’s fridge and in the body of emails entitled “could you proof this?” Formerly she co-managed the indie press Peirene Press. She has an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art and this is her first published work.

 

Annalie Wilson is an actor, singer, songwriter and music producer. She has acted in theatre, musicals, film and TV, and particularly enjoys working with new writing. After a few years releasing music under her alter ego Luna Bec she has returned to her original name with her recent single “Coming Home,” which can be streamed in all the usual places. More at www.annalie.co.uk

How a Body Likes her Breakfast by Cathy Browne

Read by Kim Scopes

I am the body he shoves and kicks under the bushes so deep that the dogs scratch their noses on the thorns and the police have to use torches to find my pale hand curled in a claw among the brambles.

I am the body that makes all this fuss. Yellow tape and gloves and white jumpsuits. They don’t want to disturb me in case they spoil the evidence, but they can’t see any evidence whilst I am stuck under a bush either.

I am the body they hesitate to bury. I am searched inside and out and all over. They comb through every particle of me and they are not even looking for me at all, they are looking for him. Did he leave any of himself behind?

Vengeance by Mina Ma

Vengeance MP3

Read by Josie Charles

The two men appeared in the car park at six o’clock. The sun was beginning to set, glowing behind them like a warning, but they didn’t take heed.

At first, they were just faceless black shapes striding out of the orange blaze. One was taller and broader than the other. The shorter one swung his arms more. They walked side-by-side. Perhaps they were brothers, or friends, or lovers.

They came closer, and became clearer.

Goddess Interrupted by Lyndsey Croal

Read by Lois Tucker

Burning alive isn’t a fate I would wish upon anyone. Of all the ways I had died, it was the worst. Flames licked across skin that hadn’t seen the sunlight in three months. Smoke stung in my lungs like acid. And all the while faces that I’d come to call my friends and neighbours gawked on, delighting in the horror of such an act. It’s no wonder that eternal flames are used to torment dark souls in the underworld – at least the small mercy was that for me it didn’t last forever.

I was careless for getting caught, though I had only been trying to help the harvest, by bringing forth the rain and stilling the wind. Alas, in this period of history into which I was transplanted, I was not heralded as a deity to be worshipped or a nymph to be respected, but as a heretic and devil worshipper.

Latest event: WOMEN & GIRLS, Tuesday 10th August at The Phoenix

"Who Run the World?" - Artwork by Nour Tohme 

 

Our 5th annual celebration of stories about and by Women & Girls was performed to a packed crowd on Tuesday 10th August at The Phoenix, with six slices of fantastic new fiction read aloud LIVE by our marvellous Liars' League actresses. It featured Mormons, murder, mediums, malicious moths, medieval maladies, Shakespeare & more - and the stories, videos and podcast are available to read, watch & listen to right now! 

WINNING STORIES for WOMEN & GIRLS

Plague of Exes, 1349 by Lauren Van Schaik, read by Gloria Sanders
Goddess Interrupted by Lyndsey Croal, read by Lois Tucker
How a Body likes her Breakfast by Cathy Browne, read by Kim Scopes
Oh Little Beast by Molly Skinner, read by Annalie Wilson
Vengeance by Mina Ma, read by Josie Charles
Lear in LA by Sakki Selznick, read by Sophie Cartman

Inspired to write for us?

NEXT DEADLINE: 11.59pm on Sunday 5th September for MAGIC & MAYHEM (event on Tuesday 12th October):

This Hallowe'en season, enchant (or curse) us with your most soul-searing stories of sorcery, necromancy, blood sacrifice, crazed rituals, inchoate horrors from a realm of unspeakable chaos ... you know the drill. 

Agony by Jennifer Rickard

Agony MP3

Read by Harrie Dobby

To the red lady on the St James omnibus –

I sing of men, and of the love
That slipped from my fingers
Velvety pure, ever unsure
I still have your glove.
Please reply as to return address via this column.

- The man with the hat

It is a pointless endeavour for a writer to hide her guilty pleasures from her reader, so instead I shall boldly confess my greatest sin here – I adore the agony columns. Those personal messages which sit on the second page of every great paper in the city of London, where people write tiny love letters, advertisements for missing relatives, requests for money and other cries from the heart – the great majority written in some kind of cipher that is only intelligible to the single soul in the world to whom it is addressed … or to a good detective.

Lookin Up by Emma Grae

Read by Lois Tucker - Full podcast here

Lockdoon turbo relationships. That’s whit they call it. Ye finally cross pass wi somewan guid, and then boom - Big Boris tells ye tae stay at hame.

“Fancy gettin a hotel?” ah text the fella ah’ve ainlie met twice. Boozers shut at ten, and a few hoors o chat wisnae gonnae be enough fur us. The prices o rooms are oan their arse because o lockdoon two.

“Aye,” he replies, no hinkin twice aboot it.

“Smashin. Meet ye by the station in an hoor?”

“Aye. Cannae wait! x”

Ah’ve gat Mark Zuckerberg tae thank fur this wan. This fella gied me a compliment oan the auld Facebook, and ah replied tellin him that he made a hot wumman. It wis true. That body swap filter is sommat else.

Evidence by Rosa Muller

Evidence MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson

Patrick burnt himself on a hot pan on Thursday night.

I heard the clatter, his shout, rushed towards the kitchen - stopped. I changed my mind and scooped Jamie up from the playpen first.

When I lifted up Jamie, something seemed to pass across his face for a moment. One of those strange seconds where I could see what he’d be like as a man.

“Why are you doing this Mama? It’s wrong,” he would say, if he could talk. Babies always think they know best.

Landline by Renee Agatep

Landline MP3

Read by Keleigh Wolf

I pressed the faded mustard handset of the rotary phone to my ear. I always expect to hear that woman crying on the other side, the one who first called when we were nine, playing with a Ouija board in the living room.

Paul and Eli hadn’t stopped talking about it since they stole it from Walmart. We touched the planchette lightly and let it glide over the letters.

B-A-L-L-S.

“Get serious, Paul!”

“Fine. But if you want ghosts to talk, you gotta say something smart. Egghead, say something magic.”

BigThick & Sally's Gnashers by Emma Grae

BigThick and Sally's Gnashers MP3  Read by Lois Tucker

The webcam rings. A customer’s waitin. Ah open ma top drawer, pullin oot a whip and nipple clamps. Here we go again. Ah make £2.50 a minute as an online dominatrix. Mair than ah ever made stackin shelves. Ah wis the first tae get the boot fae B&M when the lockdoon wis announced.           
            “Hey there,” ah say, twirlin ma hair fully-clothed.
            BigThick8756 is typing.
            “Do you like to bite?”
            “Ah sure dae.”
            “Can u show me your sharp teeth up close? xx”
            Ya dancer. Ah love a weirdo. This is a walk in the park compared tae fillin oot shitey online surveys fur a bit o extra cash, or askin folk tae donate tae watch ma comedy shows. Ma ex Bennie always said ah wisnae as funny as ah thocht ah wis.