Liars' League

Last Christmas by Rhys Timson

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by Tony Bell - Full podcast here

Twenty-five feet wouldn’t kill him, especially given the blanketing of snow. He’d probably break something though, maybe a leg or an arm. Still, just a few more inches along the roof and he’d be able to reattach the wire. He was flat against the concrete tiles, his feet propped up by the guttering, sliding himself along towards the animatronic Santa and his reindeer, currently dark and motionless atop the ridge. He was holding the cable between his teeth while he dug his fingers into the gaps. Probably not the safest way to carry a high-voltage electrical wire, but fuck it, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa and his levitating caribou.

An Irish Christmas by David McGrath

Pssst ... Resolved to submit more stories this year? Head over to our brand new 2021 themes to see what we're looking for!

Read by the author - Full podcast here

As a young woman, old Mrs Coogan reloaded rifles in the War of Independence and ran ammunition for the Flying Column of the Third Brigade. She took a bullet to the shoulder from a British Vickers machine gun for her efforts. She was heralded as the brave epitome of the new Irish republic, and missed her image featuring on the nation’s first five pound note by only two committee votes.

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.

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull

Read by Claire Louise Amias - Full podcast here

The drone dropped down to examine the strange green object the droid held in his rubberised gripper. She was buffeted slightly by the winter wind that was swirling eddies of dust amongst the ivy-clad debris.

“What’s that you have there?” asked the drone.

The solar powered engine of the droid hummed in baritone monotony.

“It’s a pear,” he replied.

Red diodes flickered on the drone’s LED display as she searched the cloud for a definition. “A fruit!” she exclaimed when the answer revealed itself. “A seed bearing structure which once grew on trees.”

The Annunciation by David Gill

Read by Lin Sagovsky - Full podcast here

Mid-December hung around Ely, Cardiff. It was cold but it had yet to snow. It had yet to do anything.

What Joseph and Mary called a flat was one room. A window that looked north across Bishopton Road. A gas cooker on which two of the four burners worked. A sink.  A double mattress set on a floor industrially carpeted grey.

The thin sunlight sighed through Joseph and Mary’s window, dangled as threads about their room.

Their furniture was plastic, Joe’s mate Paddy had lifted it from the Culverhouse Cross B&Q. Straight into his van and dropped it here one late November evening. A table and four chairs. A housewarming present.

CHRISTMAS EVENT: Heart & Soul, Tuesday 8th December

TICKET UPDATE: 8 TICKETS REMAINING, PLEASE BOOK ASAP IF YOU ARE COMING!

 

The mornings are frosty, the lockdown has (sort of, partially) lifted, and tinsel is in the supermarkets: it's finally December and time for Liars' League's annual Christmas feast of festive fiction! 

 

This month for our seasonal theme of Heart & Soul (click for Facebook event) we have five brand-new stories, set in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the far future, to warm your cockles and ginger your bread: they feature lockdown hook-ups, accidental babies, drones, droids, zombies (obviously) and some truly appalling things coming down chimneys.

 

Thanks to lockdown closures we can't be at our usual venue the Phoenix, alas: but we have provisionally booked the upstairs room at the Nag's Head in Covent Garden: stories will be read LIVE by REAL ACTORS in front of a REAL AUDIENCE at 7pm on Tuesday December 8th.

NB Tickets are STRICTLY limited to 25 and cost our usual £5. (See below for how to book online).

HEART & SOUL STORIES

A Pear for an Urchin by David Turnbull, read by Claire Louise Amias
An Irish Christmas by David McGrath, read by the author
Lookin Up by Emma Grae, read by Lois Tucker
Last Christmas by Rhys Timson, read by Tony Bell
The Annunciation by David Gill, read by Lin Sagovsky

We will also be distributing free mince pies and of course brand new novels for the quick of brain and high of hand in our Christmas book quiz.

The venue address is:
The Nag's Head
10 James Street
Covent Garden, London WC2E 8BT

 

TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 25
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

 

THE LONG VERSION

Please book a TABLE (for however many are in your group - max 6) rather than individual tickets, as pubs are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 25 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

If you want to drink alcohol you also have to order a "substantial meal", i.e. more than olives. Soft drinks are totally fine. (Sorry, them's the government guidelines ...)

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and orangey-yellow...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4. Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing. 

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.

The Heart's Filthy Desire by Tom Leins

The Heart's Filthy Desire MP3

Read by Tim Larkfield

The torrential rain sounds like gunfire as it clatters against the roof of the blood-coloured Austin Allegro. I wipe the condensation off the window and stare at the crumbling mansion. The building looks enormous – stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. Half of the windows appear to be broken and the ancient brickwork looks chipped and rancid.

The driver – a bulbous elderly man in a shabby manservant’s suit – unclips his seat-belt and turns to face me.

“Shall we?” His Westcountry accent is thicker than cow-shit.

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.”

The Last Place Anyone Looks by Rikk Hill

The Last Place Anyone Looks MP3

Read by Lin Sagovsky

“She was never… seen… again!”

The underside of Dot’s face was cast in a harsh yellow glow from the electric torch wedged between her knees. Some stories have no business being told with the lights on.

“They say she’s still there, all these years later,” Dot’s voice rasped, her eyes darting between the other three girls sitting in the circle. “And if anyone’s brave enough to play on the third floor of the east wing, they’ll hear little Harriet’s voice, taunting them: you’ll never find me .”

Dot drew a long, hissing breath, which blended seamlessly into absolute silence. All four girls cast skittish glances at one another as the silence began to overstay its welcome.

Handyman by George Aitch

Handyman MP3

Read by Sean Patterson

The café is cold, and blanketed masses huddle over steaming cups of weak tea. The bomb blast took out the windows, even in this hamlet miles from the target. Those of us who still have our sight read old newspapers and our bitterness grows. I while away my hours here now. You’ll find me at the back; the man with rough hands and heavy-lidded eyes on a pock-marked face. Not that I’d stand out from the rest with that description. One way or another, the fallout has carved its marks on all of us.

My sentry post is at the back tables, watching those who come and go. I never sit with my back to the door now. It’s some advice I’ve picked up lately, reading Malcolm X. He always took his seat where he could see the exit, just in case. My hobby breeding new paranoia.

LATEST EVENT: HIDE & SEEK Halloween stories on Tue 13 Oct, LIVE at The Phoenix!

 

Coming ... ready or not!

 

The nights are drawing in, the leaves are falling and pumpkins are in the supermarkets: October is time for Liars' League's annual pre-Halloween frightfest of fiction! And if you want to submit a story for our next open theme(s) click here. 

 

For our HIDE & SEEK theme we tracked down five never-before-told tales to scare you out of your skin. These were read LIVE by REAL ACTORS in front of a REAL AUDIENCE at 7pm on Tuesday October 13th at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, and tickets remained a furlough-friendly £5!

 

HIDE & SEEK STORIES

 

EVIDENCE by Rosa Müller new author - read by Annalie Wilson

LANDLINE by Renee Agatep new author - read by Keleigh Wolf

THE HEART'S FILTHY DESIRE by Tom Leins new author - read by Tim Larkfield

THE LAST PLACE ANYONE LOOKS by Rikk Hill new author - read by Lin Sagovsky

HANDYMAN by George Aitch - read by Sean Patterson

 

It's a real bowl of creepy candy including girls' school ghosts, sloppy serial killers, post-apocalyptic survivalists, a haunted phone call and an eccentric aristo's personal monster museum. We also had literal candy in the form of FREE spooky sweets, as well as our horrific book quiz where brand new fiction including Christopher's Ghosts, Death Wish, Tales from the Cauldron and the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies Cookbook was won.

The venue address is the basement bar of:
The Phoenix, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP

 

                                 TICKETS & EVENT INFO (the small print stuff)

TL:DR

- Tickets are limited to 50
- and are a low low £5
- but you have to book a table even if it's just you. Singletons book tables for 2.
- book and pay through Paypal using the orange Donate button above, top right

THE LONG VERSION

The Phoenix has arranged cabaret seating in the basement with tables available of 2, 4, 5 and 6 people. This means you book a TABLE (for however many are in your group) rather than individual tickets, as they are not allowed to seat people of different "groups" (even if that group is only one person) together. So we strongly suggest you contact your friends if you think they'll be coming, and book a table together. If you're on your own just book a table for 2, but these are limited. 

 

Tickets will be limited to 50 (assuming all tables are full - may be slightly fewer if some tables are not full), and our ticket price remains a furlough-favouring £5.

 

How to book: Please use the Donate button on the top right of the LL website page (look up, look right, it's small and yellow ...) to donate the price of however many tickets you want to us. So a table for 6 would be £30, but a table for 2 with only one guest is £5 because we're not going to punish you for not filling a table. Here's how you do it.

 

- Click the Donate button

- Enter the amount: £5 for 1 ticket, £10 for 2 etc. (you have to type in 5 - 0 - 0 for £5, it's slightly non-intuitive)

- Click Donate. This will take you to your Paypal login (if you don't have Paypal get someone else on your table to pay for tickets :) 

- IMPORTANT: Where it says Add a note please enter your name plus how many you want on your table. E.g. Katy Darby, Table for 4. Track & trace/QR code stuff is done at the venue so we don't need everyone's names, just the booker's.

- Ideally, tick the Share your email address button so we can contact you if there's any problem

- Click Donate Now

- And you're done! 

 

N.B. ALL donated funds (after Paypal fees) support contributing actors & authors: we take nothing. 

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.

The Baby by Irina Zahl

The Baby MP3

Read by Jennifer Aries

CONTENT NOTE Contains themes some readers may find distressing. 

We don't talk about the baby in our house. We are not in denial. We don’t neglect the baby. We don't pretend that the baby doesn't exist. It's just that my husband and I agreed early on that the baby would not rule our lives.

We don't completely ignore the baby, and now and then we say things like "Do you think the baby will like this?", "Do you think that'll be right for the baby's bedroom?", "Will the baby be OK to go on holiday with us? Don’t you think the flight is too long?"

We try not to buy too much for the baby. It's not easy because baby things – especially baby clothes and baby toys, like little bear suits and knitted bunnies and elephants with black button eyes – are so exceptionally cute. 

Quintet by Nora Thurkle

Quintet MP3

Read by Miranda Harrison

Before most of them dropped out or graduated, Annie shared a flat with four other girls. Their friendships were based on fragile foundations: late-night drunken oversharing, unhealthy sexual competition, the intensity of plunging together into adulthood.

Lydia had an eating disorder that was obvious to everyone but that no one mentioned. She had a big group of friends from home who would come and stay in the flat at short notice, who were friendly but lounged obstructively in the kitchen. She was infuriatingly kind and liked everyone, had a series of clearly suspect boyfriends who hung around sullenly, eating other people’s food. She was the one who emailed the landlord when the mouse infestation became critical or the shower sputtered to a stubborn halt for days, because she was the best at staying polite and reasoned. Annie loved Lydia. She had been a source of laughter, commiserations and short-term loans for several years.

Duck and Cover by Rosaleen Lynch

Duck and Cover MP3

Read by Lin Sagovsky

John Lennon ruined my life. It was the summer of 1971. ‘Imagine,’ he said. I did, and where did that get me and my kids? Not much further than my hometown, not very far in my education and no way closer to my dreams. College, in ‘71, was marches, boycotts and leaflets. We went to protests instead of classes, carried the placards, wore the T-shirts and covered ourselves in flowers, badges and pins. We flew banners and flags but kept them and our clothes safe from open flames. It was a perilous time, not just in Vietnam. And all we got for our troubles was thrown out of college, and less than ten years later Lennon got shot.

 

Come Away, O Human Child by Emily Tobin

Come Away O Human Child MP3

Read by Sarah Feathers

I was impatient for summer to begin but as soon as we arrived at the strange little house near the river I was bored. The days were long and uneven. My limbs ached and my eyelids were heavy. At night I’d hear my parents having sex through the bedroom wall and it made me want to drown myself. 

There had been a slip-up. My father had briefly started and ended an affair with a neighbour. I forget now who it was, but the pattern was always the same. A bristle of passion. A gasp of remorse. A plate thrown. A promise it would never happen again. The salve this time was a holiday at a rented house in a sedentary corner of the country.  

It was the hottest summer on record. It was always the hottest summer on record.

Fifty Feet Deep by Caroline von Schmalensee

Fifty Feet Deep MP3

Read by Sophie Morris-Sheppard

It should have known better. This pond had been hers for a very long time even by her species' reckoning, and there was no way its elders hadn't warned it. Any daredevil youngster who put their plump fingers into her domain could expect to have them bitten right off and fair do’s.

Jenny was sitting on the bottom of her pond with her prize, a boy who wouldn't be soft enough to eat comfortably for another two days. He was rich with fat and muscle — she'd had a nibble, of course, but he'd be better if she could wait. She might not have the time. 

The water felt what happened on land and told her. It sent her the vibrations of many people stomping on the ground between the pond's edge and her lean-to. It passed on movement and it refracted light. A flickering orange suggested the mob was burning her home.

Next event: Women & Girls, Tue August 11th *ONLINE*

*Dedicated to Lea Darby - proud feminist and girl-wrangler*

We're delighted to announce the stories selected for our fourth annual Women & Girls event on Tuesday August 11th! From underwater cannibals to Glaswegian cam-girls, single mums to restless teens, via a nightmare flatshare and terrified expectant parents, we've got a female-focused live-lit lineup you won't want to miss ...

WATCH PARTY LINK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2959030028/wp/715808622330554/?av=100032029133078

WOMEN & GIRLS WINNING STORIES

 

Quintet by Nora Thurkle *New author* read by Miranda Harrison
Come Away, O Human Child by Emily Tobin *New author* read by Sarah Feathers
Fifty Feet Deep by Caroline von Schmalensee *New author* read by Soph Morris-Sheppard
BigThick and Sally's Gnashers by Emma Grae*New author* read by Lois Tucker
Duck & Cover by Rosaleen Lynch *New author* read by Lin Sagovsky
The Baby by Irina Zahl, read by Jennifer Aries

Sadly our host venue The Phoenix has not yet reopened to events, so this will be our third online Lockdown Literature show of 2020. As with our first online event in April, our actors will record the six winning stories at home, for broadcast on Facebook at 7.30pm BST on Tuesday August 11th: these will then be made available as video, podcast/MP3 and text right here on our website, on the same day. 

PLEASE NOTE: IN ORDER TO JOIN THE FACEBOOK WATCH PARTY, YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF OUR FACEBOOK GROUP, "LIARS' LEAGUE" https://www.facebook.com/groups/2959030028/

Feel free to join just for this if you like, and leave after ... sorry, that's just how these things work on Facebook, apparently. The watch party is naturally free to view - but if you'd like to support the authors and (especially) actors involved, see below ...

TIPS & DONATIONS

Usually we'd use ticket sale cash to buy our contributors food, booze and/or books. As we can't do that right now, if you want to donate some £/$ towards the actors and authors who have dedicated time, talent and effort to entertain you, please do so via Paypal to liarsleague@yahoo.co.uk ... or you can use the Donate button on the right -->

All money will be split equally between all participants: if you'd like your money to go to a particular author, actor or story, just add a note to your donation saying so: named "tips" will be passed on to those contributors. LL won't be taking anything .

 

 

She Can Look After Herself by Ken Towl

She Can Look After Herself MP3

Read by Louisa Gummer & Nick Delvalle

The first time I felt concerned about my mother? I can't remember the exact date but it was around the time the Coronavirus pandemic started and they went into isolation. I got a text from my mother which alarmed me.

Keep it to yourself, she said, but I think dad is trying to kill me. Of course, I phoned her straight away and she answered whispering:

"I'm in the shed. It's OK to speak here but next time don't call again. Wait till I call you."

A Space to Inhabit by Lyndsey Croal

A Space to Inhabit MP3

Read by Lois Tucker

I can’t remember when the Cloud appeared. It’s like it’s always been here, on the edge of Elm Woods. A silent force watching over our village.

I try to trace its origin back to a moment in time, but there’s only a blur. When I think about the Woods, my childhood memories are clear: Brownie expeditions, playing hopscotch made from sticks, making daisy chains, and summer afternoons playing hide and seek with Ruairidh. But while I can’t specifically remember the Cloud being there at those times, neither can I recall it not being there.

Once upon a time, the Cloud existed.