Despair is the kind of friend you would rather not have, because he never says 'I understand' but "I told you so.  Why are you so blind?  It was there in front of your face."  Or, if he is feeling really good, "You're stupid, you know." For once, I would like Despair to just be quiet.  Shut up. THIS SHORT AND CLEVER TALE of one-night with Despair is the first in author Hope Barrett's Black Series.  A mu...

Patience and Reason decided they needed to talk to Love. "Listen," said Reason, "you have to do something.  You are the one who allowed the twins in." "I know," said Love, and coughed.  Blood came out. FROM THE author of Somebody Get Me A Hammer!! comes this biting account of twins Passive and Aggressive, two individuals in search of a good time at the expense of Reason, Patience, and Love.  C...

PRINCESS FARTALOT HAS MORE THAN A GAS PROBLEM!At the buffet table were labelled: Sea Grapes, Green Caviar, Gutweed; Dabberlocks, Brown Tuning Fork, party socks (say what?!);costata, baccata, himanthalia elongata. The Princess's face turned gloomy. Where was the mash?PRINCESS FARTALOT makes her digital debut in an adventure Under the Sea, creating a stink that asks you to think: hmmm... What should a Princess b...

Everytime she opened her mouth snakes and centipedes spilled out, along with some kind of sticky clear liquid that shrivelled the hairs in one's nose, on smelling it. One time a startled frog showed up in the expelling and almost spoiled everyone's lunch. AT THE CENTRE of this dark bedtime story is a character with a unique predilection: every time Ava opens her mouth snakes come falling out...   

Ambitious, capricious, avaricious... Hmm, the Princess thought. And thought some more. Something bad is about to happen, for sure...This prequel to Under the Sea finds the rebel Princess enlisting the help of a witch so that she may escape her Father's plans for a royal marriage. But things don't go quite as planned...In fact:The Princess awoke feeling groggy and her voice, when she spoke, was distinctly froggy.She stunk like a sk...

IT HAS been seven months since the planets and airlines aligned so that we might find ourselves in the same country, in the same space, face to face.  Normally this kind of movement in the skies only occurs once every two years.  After 25 years of being there for each other through heart-break, angst, and a particularly nasty case of food poisoning (good job there were two toilets in the house), we are nothing less than life-long friends.  But... as warm and happy as our...

Somebody Get Me A Hammer 2!! continues to chart the battle against probability, and just what playing with self-preservation means. Is it quitting after you win $32,000? Or when you call it a day after leaving USD$115 million on the table? This biting account of what happens when governments makes gambling a key source of revenue will resonate and educate.

*"THE classic mid-Victorian pantomime was essentially a fairy play with comedic elements and as such, it was fiercely defended by critics such as John Ruskin and Charles Dickens Jr, journalist son of the great novelist. The man they held chiefly responsible for the 'music hall invasion' was Sir Augustus Harris, the manager of Drury Lane, popularly known as 'the national home of pantomime.'"But in the 1880s and 1890s he was seriously challenged by the now forgotten Oscar Barrett who...

Foolish Heart had discovered love. Dizzying, perturbing, amazing. Foolish Heart was in love with CC. If only CC's name wasn't short for Can't Commit. Pia was looking to escape, from the bird collector who kept her in a cage. Pia could barely breathe. THIS SECOND title from the Black Series offers up the question: what is a triangle, if not a math equation? And what does Ruth, the palmist, mean when she says, "You are soul mates, but sometimes soul mates aren...

WHEN BAD things happen, the erudite Chinese does not look up at the skies and ask "Why?" Instead, he looks at his house, his job, his spouse and decides which of these three is causing the problem. On rare occasions, it is the latter, but the Chinese learned in his astrology would have avoided such an error from the get-go.Whatever Paula Abdul (1962, Tiger) may sing about opposites attracting, Chinese Astrology advises that there are other ways of learning to grow rather than takin...

DEFIANT and unconventional, Princess Fartalot finds herself at the edge of the forest and sanity at the offering of doo ~ yes,that would be poo ~ in Part Two of her ongoing adventures.

A young girl lives in fear of her abusive father....A powerful short tale. Based on a true story.