Liars' League

NEXT EVENT: Women & Girls, Tuesday 10th September

Hurrah! Tuesday September 10th sees the 8th edition of our annual talent-spotting tour-de-force of female-led fiction, Women & Girls! We have five stunning stories by five women writers exploring everything from aliens to arson: winning stories and full details are below. 

 

WINNING STORIES for WOMEN & GIRLS (8th edition)

 

"A Doll's Head in Hackney" by Kathryn Sharpe, read by Miranda Harrison

Divorce, adoption and a doll's head to bind them ...

 

"All the Times I Thought I was Pregnant" by JM Cyrus, read by Aren Devlin

Surreal humour when an overthinking teen finds love in the most unusual place

 

"Karma" by Katie Lewis, read by Alexandra Kenna

Black Mirror meets the dark web in this tense tale of the deadly consequences of voyeurism

 

"Talons & Teeth" by Lizzie Muncey, read by the author 

The collapse and rebirth of a suburban family, as told by their nosy neighbour

 

"Tiny Furies" by E. Ce Miller, read by Martine Richards

Absolute scenes in first-grade after Bree brings in a bento box for lunch

 

 

Fancy coming along on Tuesday 10th September? Book your budget-friendly £5 tickets ASAP if you want the best seats - and don't forget that two-for-one burgers on Tuesday nights are BACK at our venue, the Phoenix, Cavendish Square, W1 - PLUS there will be our usual epic literary quiz with brilliant books by women to win, and free sweets for all!

 

Tuesday 10th September, 7.30pm, tickets £5 (doors open at 6.30pm)

The Phoenix basement bar
37 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PP

(nearest tube Oxford Circus)

 

N.B. We DO now accept card payments on the door, but it's well worth booking a ticket in advance to ensure you get a table - just click here. Any questions? See below. 

 

Tuesday 10th September, 7.30pm, tickets £5 (doors open at 6.30pm)

The Phoenix basement bar
37 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PP

(nearest tube Oxford Circus)

 

N.B. We DO now accept card payments on the door, but it's well worth booking a ticket in advance to ensure you get a table - just click here. Any questions? See below. 

Tuesday 10th September, 7.30pm, tickets £5 (doors open at 6.30pm)

The Phoenix basement bar
37 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PP

(nearest tube Oxford Circus)

 

N.B. We DO now accept card payments on the door, but it's well worth booking a ticket in advance to ensure you get a table - just click here. Any questions? See below. 

Tuesday 10th September, 7.30pm, tickets £5 (doors open at 6.30pm)

The Phoenix basement bar
37 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PP

(nearest tube Oxford Circus)

 

N.B. We DO now accept card payments on the door, but it's well worth booking a ticket in advance to ensure you get a table - just click here. Any questions? See below. 

The Phoenix basement bar
37 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PP

(nearest tube Oxford Circus)

 

N.B. We DO now accept card payments on the door, but it's well worth booking a ticket in advance to ensure you get a table - just click here. Any questions? See below. 

Shooting Gallery by Abigail Lee

Read by Gloria Sanders - fourth story in podcast, at 1h 02min, link below:
S&L Podcast (right click Open Link in New Tab to enable fast-forwarding)

The shooting-gallery with its trundling tinplate targets is where the kid heads the minute she enters the county fair, quarters heavy in her frayed pants-pocket. Gallery Gertie, timeworn matron of the stall, tough as fairground toffee and slippery as a greased pole, watches flint-eyed as the money’s laid down.

The kid steadies the rifle on the peeling paint of the counter and closes one eye as she sights, like her dad showed her. Thirteen last birthday, pale and skinny as a basement-plant, she never hit a thing before but she’s been practising all summer. Maybe this’ll be the year?

Romancing the Cherry by Laura Morgan

Read by Patsy Prince - third story in podcast, at 35:11, link below:
S&L Podcast (right click Open Link in New Tab to enable fast-forwarding)

If you want a peaceful weekend away in the sun, don’t spend it with serious pub quizzers. I was reaching this conclusion before we even got off the plane. Nigel had invited me as a last-minute replacement. I wasn’t much of a quizzer, certainly not in his league, but he knew I had minimal commitments and a flexible schedule (for which read: almost no family, few friends and sporadic-at-best work), so I was a good bet for making up numbers.

On the flight I’d gradually put names to faces. Mary and Deepak, a frowning couple eating egg sandwiches. Steve, a burly northerner talking obsessively about sport.

(“Is sport your specialist subject?”

“You can’t have specialist subjects when you quiz at this level, Annie. You have to be a generalist.”)

Somebody by Lanay Griessner

Read by Lucy Mabbitt, full podcast here. 

I worked at The Lost Sock for six months before I started stealing from the Lost and Found. It was a pragmatic decision. I had no more space in the box and there was a new pleather vest to add to the pile. I could have gotten a second box, or a bigger box, but that just would have delayed the inevitable. No one came back to collect anything. Ever. Maybe leaving something at a laundromat was another way of throwing it out, like sneaking it in someone else's garbage can because yours was full. 

But the stuff wasn't garbage. There was a flip phone, a cashmere sweater, sequinned leggings, a gold wedding ring, a camouflage fanny pack, a magic 8 ball, a smorgasbord of foreign coins that were almost the same size as quarters but were not actually quarters, a peace sign crop top, a sari wrap, flannel pyjamas, a Snuggie, and a pink vibrator. 

Thrill by Georgina Sims

Read by Gloria Sanders - full podcast here. 

It’s humid on the balcony. The street below emits only a quiet hum, its buzz weighed down by the heat. I let my body linger for a while, taking solace in the silence before watching it sway in the reflection of the sliding door. The throbbing in my right foot is like a mimic of my heartbeat. Everything is so rhythmic – so slow.

Paul’s blurred silhouette paces around the kitchen, disrupting the mirror-image as he tries to find something to clean up the blood. I want to tell him to check the third drawer on the left, but I refrain. Because I can’t remember how it got like this. I can’t remember when this stopped being fun.

An Evening at the Faeling Cafe by Charlotte Davis

Read by Sophie Morris-Sheppard - full podcast here. 

Aperitif: Spellbound Martini - Shaken for a hint of glamour!

***

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and I’ve been freezing the bastard for months; churning it over and over like butter, or ice cream. Biding my time just as he had bided his, since that fateful day he ordered his first Foreplay Frappe - a fun night guaranteed! - with that dopey smile.

“Good choice, that’s my favourite!” I exclaimed as I rang it up.

“Then one for yourself as well,” came his smooth reply. “Or maybe something a little stronger when you get off shift?”

What Was & What Is by Kathryn Sharpe

Read by Katy Darby (click to listen) What Was & What Is MP3

You’re in the office; a small room decorated with dead plants in a building with other businesses trying to make it. The windows seal the sound of the street below.  Moorgate is busy in the week again. It’s a rare visit from you. Since you left London for love you’re not here often.

Leanna is sitting opposite on a patchy leather sofa that drips with drool from the dogs that come in. Bringing in pandemic puppies who have become adults with behavioral issues is a work benefit listed first on the careers page, above the pensions that no one can afford to contribute to and the ‘inclusive culture’ that is not really followed.

The Visit by Marta Patiño

Read by Carrie Cohen (2nd story in podcast, at 16min 30s, here)

Cassandra could not explain why she was compelled to visit Chance House. Or why she had dreamt of the grand estate, seeming to know its every corner. She looked out from her bedroom window as stars clung to the waning night. The last fragments of a dream darted away like silver fish, replaced by a childhood memory of grey stone walls etched with moss, and a line of windows like a hound baring its teeth. Cassandra was practically a stranger to Chance House, her mother’s childhood home, though she knew well where the long driveway began. She scanned the lacework of trees, trying to locate the dwelling that lay beyond the fields and woods.

It was true the house had been in her thoughts of late. The property had lain empty for months, and had been recently inherited by Mr Kitto, who had left his mines in Northumberland to take up residence there. No doubt she was curious about meeting her cousins.

Looking for Matti by Grace Andreacchi

Read by Sarah Barlex (5th story in podcast, at 1hXXmin, here)

It was Christmas in Berlin. Lise had come alone on the train from London because there was no one who might have come with her. Everywhere in the streets the smell of burning, mingled with the sickly sweet odour of death. Piles of ash appeared solid as mountains but dissolved at the touch of a hand, collapsed in upon themselves, then scattered white wraiths of cloud upon the wind. In place of buildings were towers of broken rubble from which the wreckage of life protruded – a picture of an alpine landscape upon a half-burnt wall, a bathtub, white and glistening, swaying like an exotic fruit upon a stem of twisted lead piping, somebody’s leg still wearing half a pair of military trousers: further down the street, a pair of calcified boots. Lise was in Berlin, looking for Matti. The streets were nearly empty of people, the few she passed like evil ghosts swathed in black rags; thin and shivering, they stared after her with dull eyes.

When duppy does come, who are you? by Clarissa Angus

Read by Sophie Cartman (final story in podcast, here - find it at 1:30:10)

Under an obsidian sky with no stars, Kiyane crouches by the chicken coop in the yard behind mistress house. She doesn’t know what to do. Going back inside might mean she would dead. Hiding in the yard might see her get catch and could dead, too. She covers her ears, but that does no good. She can still hear every dying scream of her kin, the other folks trapped inside the house, before they fall away, leaving only the creeping silence of their killer.

When duppy come, you should run ‘way
When duppy come, them nah speak but them stay
Duppy is mean, but duppy is few
When duppy does come, who are you?

By the Flower, not the Axe by Leila Murton Poole

Read by Clareine Cronin (fifth story in podcast, here, at 55:15)

The King always has blood beneath his fingernails. It is all I think about as he touches me, clumsily, with bloated hands that struggle to obey his desires. Rusty flakes crumble onto my skin, the dried blood of hunted deer and boar though they may as well belong to one of my predecessors. Henry sees his wives as dispensable, to serve his purpose and nothing more. The ghosts of his beheaded wives surround the bed, chanting a word that drowns out his grunts of carnal desire.

Run.

Be Lucky, Girls by Hannah Downes

Read by Lucy Mabbitt (first story in podcast: click here)

Esme’s heart beats so quickly that even super fast songs, 160 beats per minute, sound as though they’re in slow motion.

My pulse could outrun anything, she thinks to herself as she lies awake each night, her bedsheets palpitating in time with the blood pumping fast through her veins.

The thought that her pulse could outrun anything is something of a comfort to Esme when she reads news headlines, daily, about women being raped, murdered, deleted from her city. And yet she still cannot will herself to close both eyes.

While You Were Sleeping by Alyson Tait

To listen to actress Lucy Mabbitt reading the story, click here: While You Were Sleeping MP3

I let my head fall against the chair's faded leather upholstery. "Today would be the second anniversary of our first date. A year ago, you argued that I mis-remembered. My name came out of your mouth every fifth word like 'Molly' was suddenly a vulgar swear."

I listen to the ventilator for a moment and scoff. "You know, Hannah … I remembered all of our anniversaries. I remember that it took you six full months to agree that we were official. Another three to meet your parents."

Silence greets me -- as usual. "You'd never admit it, but I always suspected I'm your first girlfriend."

A frog jumps into my throat, and for a minute, it's hard to speak.

"Do you remember how long the two of us sat in that corner booth? Our drinks ran dry, and that dinky light bulb blew out. It took forty minutes for our waitress to notice."

Saltwater by Sally Wild

Guilt is a hunter. Love is a warrior. Sorrow is a stranger.  Solitude is a face glimpsed in a crowd and then gone forever. Knowledge is a ray of light in the darkness. Confusion is a twat.

I stand at the edge of the sea. I feel sad. At the edge of the sea, where the water meets the land, where the land meets the water, I stand, and experience the emotion of sadness. I listen to the gentle roar and rush of the sea, the quiet but persistent rush and roar that is the sea’s roaring rush, its rushing roar. Now I know sadness and now I know the sea. The sea, the sound, the sadness, the pebbles on the beach. How many pebbles? Impossible to count them, but I know – I know – it must be more than twelve.

Absence Episodes by Darinka Aleksic

Read by Claire Lacey

Sandra found out she was pregnant early on, when “your baby is approximately the size of a blueberry”. She’d never bothered with books when she was expecting the girls, it had all just happened. But it was different this time round. By the time the baby was size of a large plum, Barry had already fucked off, and she’d spent the weeks between grapefruit and watermelon entirely by herself.

Dave was on the scene by the time they stopped measuring babies by fruit.

What size was Ryan then? she wondered, as she sat in the darkness of the car park. Six months old. Christmas turkey for 20, maybe. Hefty.

The Wolf's Daughter by Mina Ma

Read by Carrie Cohen

Red is quite the storyteller. 

‘There was a deafening roar as it charged out of the undergrowth, coming right at me, straight for my pale throat ...’

She’s told this same story to locals and tourists alike over the years – while Apple gurgled in a basket at her feet; while Apple toddled in between the chairs and legs of audience members who pinched her cheeks; while Apple played hide and seek with her own shadow. Red tells it, now, beside the inn’s glowing fireplace, while Apple serves drinks behind the bar.

Imprisoned, We Dream of Flight by Katie Lewis

Read by Lin Sagovsky

When Abbie summons me, she offers up her soul to destroy everything.

Laughing, I decline. “I’m a fallen angel,” I say, gesturing to my missing wings. “Exiled to Hell for greed. But one day, I’ll be freed and the world will be mine to play with.” I grin, showing teeth. “I need it undestroyed for that to happen.”

Abbie scowls. She’s young – maybe fifteen – and exudes loathing.  “What makes you so sure you’ll be freed?”

I shrug, glancing around what seems to be her bedroom. It’s oddly bare. “Humans worked out how to summon us from Hell,” I say. “Eventually, one will work out how to free me entirely, in return for something they think they need.” I smirk. “In fact, I have some idea of how that ritual would work. You could –”

“Only if you’ll destroy everything,” she says quickly.

The Man Downstairs by Renesha Dhanraj

Read by Anoushka Deshmukh (third story in podcast, here)

Tonight, again, Madam cannot sleep because of the rustling. Because Madam doesn’t sleep, I can’t sleep. She pulls me from my cot — a meagre straw thing pushed to the furthest corner of her bedroom — and wraps my fingers around the pinta broom. We keep the broom inside now.

Downstairs, she says.

Downstairs is the kitchen, which is where I slept before Madam got the way she is now.

A man is downstairs. A man has gotten into the kitchen because Madam left the downstairs window open, hoping that a breeze will flit its way in and soothe the overheating of ancient womanhood.

The Princess and the Kennel Girl by Fiona Mossman

Read by Patsy Prince (first story in podcast, here)

There was once a princess in a high, far, wintry kingdom who had a very strange gift that some called a curse. It was on account of this that the princess was locked away, her contact with other people forbidden, and gloves of the most curious kinds ordered for her from the lands to the south, where costly materials were woven by many skilled artisans, softer and kinder than the rough wools of that mountainous kingdom.

The princess was treated well and wanted for nothing, but her heart was sore from loneliness. She could often be seen at the window of her high tower, talking to the birds and to the air. The folk in the fields below saw her, and looked down again to their work.

Interview at the RSA by Sarah Richardson

Read by Andrea Hall (first story in podcast, here)

The man opposite had started trying to make eye contact. I could tell by the way his shoe twisted quickly back and forth, grazing the scuffed floor of the waiting room in a timid plea for acknowledgement. I kept my gaze on the shoe—a worn DM, sketchily smeared with polish by its owner—for as long as my nerves could take it, which I doubted had amounted to very long at all. I looked up: ‘Hi—’

‘Hi!’ The man’s hope leapt from his throat so forcefully that another man, sitting to his left, visibly recoiled. ‘I don’t suppose you’d—’

‘No.’ Then I added, ‘Sorry.’ Because genuinely I was: sorry for him, whoever he was, sorry for all of us. Chances were he was decent enough, and he wasn’t bad-looking either—a bit sweaty, but all of us left had been waiting more than three hours now and to be honest I probably looked a lot worse. 

Dear Miss Maguire by Amy Eddings

Read by Caroline O'Mahoney & Oliver Yellop (final story in podcast here, at 1:23:40)

Dear Miss Sullivan,

Was it but yesternoon I beheld you first, gliding so elegantly through Hanover Square in that utterly bewitching taupe walking-dress with the Paris silk trim? The feathers on your hat danced as vivaciously as if they would truly fly – and my heart, treacherous bird that it is, flew from my breast to be with them! I near-swooned, fearing that so divine a vision must be heaven-sent; that perhaps my twenty-four short years on Earth had concluded as I turned the corner, and God had sent an angel to reap my soul!

It was only when you dropped your little lace handkerchief – positively the coverlet for an infant cherub in its delicacy and beauty! – granting me the inestimable good fortune of retrieving and returning it to you, that I understood I was not the visionary dreamer of an exquisite dream, and that you existed indeed! A Woman, in the very Flesh, before my bedazzled eyes!