Liars' League

Your story could be reviewed by literary agents Janklow & Nesbit

Exciting developments are afoot at Liars' League! We are now working in association with prestigious literary agency Janklow & Nesbit, who represent such luminaries as Jasper Fforde and Sean Connery. 

They have kindly agreed to read the winning stories chosen each month with a view to talent-spotting the best and brightest of new writers (that's you). So if you want to be in with a chance of having your story read, not only by a highly talented actor, but by a top literary agency looking for new clients, keep submitting your very best work to us. For info on how to submit see So you want to submit a story, eh?

Sex & the City stories chosen for Tue 10 Nov!

Strap on your Jimmy Choos and polish up your ... er ... strap-on (is that too rude?) for next Tuesday 10th November's extravaganza of the erotic and the urban - our Sex & the City event! 

This month we have talking vermin, Sydney strippers, the lonely loves of New York, bondage on the beach, passion in the office and a first date, Mexico-style ... 

Leaving by Cherry Potts, read by Susan Moisan 

Rat by Liam Hogan, read by Silas Hawkins 

Night by Gerri George, read by Maggie McCourt 

Ten Years On by Rob Ganley, read by Paul Clarke 

The Games they Played by Jacqueline Walker, read by Adam Ganne 

The Sacred Duty of Mexican Mothers by Michael McLaughlin, read by Lin Sagovsky 

Be there or be so last season ... And if you're a writer, don't forget that the deadline for stories for our Christmas Fire & Ice theme is this Friday 6 November. Get 'em in now!

Spectres at the Feast - Liars' stories performed

Stories from Liars' League performed by some of our finest actors will feature as part of this exciting event on Thursday 29 October

Spectres will appear through the night within the haunted halls of Dirty Dick’s upstairs room for a night celebrating ghost stories and horror. The night will be haunted by stories and song from folklore, classic ghost literature and twenty-first century penny dreadfuls. Encounter vampires, phantom thumbs, séances gone wrong, lost souls, football hooligans from beyond the grave and much more.

Performers include Al Robertson, Janet Dowling, Chris Roberts, Niall Boyce, Jude Cowen & Paul Cowdell.

Featured Liars' League stories are:
The Workers on the Cross by Brindley Hallam Dennis, read by Steve Wedd
A Call to Arms by Niall Boyce, read by Annalie Wilson
Cold Snap by Kate Cording, read by Danielle Fenemore
The Cruch by Michael Spring, read by Ben Crystal

Join their ghost story quiz and win a stack of horror stories.

Details
Time: 19:00 - 22:00
Location: Dirty Dick's, 202 Bishopsgate, London, United Kingdom
Contact: skitster@hotmail.com
Facebook page: here

Can you write something short and tweet on Sex & the City? (#llsatc)

Following the marvellous response to our Blood & Thunder Twitter competition this month and a very positive response from our audience (audio here) we're doing it again.

So rules are:

1. Tweets should include hashtag #llsatc (Liars' League Sex and the City - to distinguish it from hashtags on a certain piece of television)
2. Stories can refer to either Sex or the City or both
3. Stories can be of any genre
4. You can post as many as you like
5. We retain the right not to post all entries to this site
6. Deadline is Saturday 7 November midnight GMT

Quick thoughts on what worked well last time:

• Entries that managed to set place and character
• Tweets that were more than a gag
• Twists
• Anything that made a virtue of brevity
• Humour - though not exclusively

There. Get tweeting!

Blood Relative by Niall Boyce

Read by Claire Louise Amias

I have a dream in which I am looking down on a settlement of small thatched huts, arranged in a rough circle with a ditch and ramparts at the perimeter. It is late evening. Through the blue fug of woodsmoke, I can see an old man in dirty, tattered clothes standing at the gates of the village. Two figures, both dressed in loose, hooded robes, stand either side of him.

The man makes a gesture with his arms, and they depart. One walks to the east. The other goes west, into the red glare of the setting sun. The figure heading east walks with a stumbling gait. It diminishes in size as it goes, as if it were melting away. The other is more powerful. It moves with purposeful strides, and in its wake it leaves a thin red streak along the centre of the road.

Mirror by Cherry Potts

Read by Kevin Potton

This is what I remember.

The bruising rain pocking my face, the torrent in my ears.  Opening my mouth to drink, stinging the back of my throat- the metal-sour stench of the machine – opening my eyes to wash pain from my mind.

The dark mood still snapping around me, though I had done my best to break it – and it had done its best to finish me.

Despair: most of all despair…

Consommé by Brindley Hallam Dennis

Read by Jennifer Aries

If I had realised that Dr. Hemstitch had been dead for several years by the time I met him I would have been less enthusiastic about allowing him to kiss my hand. In fact he seemed remarkably active for a man of what I took to be his age, and it never crossed my mind that I might be saying hello to a corpse. He seemed so cheerful, which of course, in hindsight, was no surprise.

Kalashnikov by Michael Spring

Read by Thomas Judd

The foxes may be rooting around in the bins again, but a Kalashnikov? Is that really, as they say, proportionate?

Be the best by Jim Alexander

Read by Terence Anderson

Science fiction: there was a war of endless attrition where young women, young men, died in .....-nothing. A strange expanse of media space. A blackness.

They were there and then they are gone. They die. Where they are sent as uniforms, coloured connections between brain, machine and target: they are marching feet, machines clicking, bleeping, whirring, bells chiming red hairs glowing TARGET DESTROYED they are faceless in a void. From whence they will either return hollow, streaked with horror, bagged and boxed in prosthetics, endless bars, or:  a newsreel clatters and suddenly they are alive. The proud young applelike faces of this war ranged on the evening’s news like fruit stacked in a greengrocer’s barrow.

Getting away with it by Jill Weinberger

Read by Emer O Connor

It’s a strange thing to kill someone and get away with it. Not to murder and get away with it, though I’m sure that’s quite the feeling all its own. In fact, I’ve been thinking of it more lately. Of murder. Killing someone deliberately. Because that’s what taking a life does to you – it makes you wonder. About a lot of things.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ten top Twitter Blood & Thunder tales - 134 characters or less

The 'normal'-length podcasts from Tuesday's evening of Blood & Thunder will be up shortly. In the interim, however, here are the ten finest Twitter tales submitted from around the globe to our challenge to write to the theme in less than 134 characters. The podcast with the audience reaction is below. Enjoy. And of course, do retweet ;-)

Read by Tim Aldrich