All our events are held (Covid permitting) at 7.30pm (doors open at 6.30pm) on the second Tuesday of every other month (February / April / June / August / October / December) EXCEPT Women & Girls which is in September (due to pub refurbishment).
To book tickets for our next event, please click here.
The venue is the downstairs bar at The Phoenix (click here for map) 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP. The Phoenix is a five-minute walk from Oxford Circus tube, which is on the Victoria, Bakerloo & Central lines.
N.B. In months where Covid restrictions precluded live performance, stories were videoed by actors & we hosted the events as Watch Parties on Facebook, which anyone can view by joining our Facebook group here.
All theme deadlines are on the first Sunday of the preceding month (e.g. the deadline for December's Hearth & Home is Sunday 5th November). Full submission guidelines are on our submissions page, but basically, your story must be 800-2000 words long, previously unpublished (print & online), anonymised (no name on the story) & emailed to us at [email protected] by 11.59pm GMT on the day of the deadline.
LIARS' LEAGUE 2024 EVENT DATES, THEMES & DEADLINES
NEXT DEADLINE: Sunday 3rd November at 11.59pm UK time, for our Christmas event.
See below.
Tuesday 2nd April - DREAMS & REALITY
Tuesday 11th April - ROYALTY & REVOLUTION
2023 saw the first Coronation in 70 years ... so the night of Tuesday 11th April (also our 150th show by the way, which makes us at least 70 in literary event years) was themed on Royalty & Revolution. We brought you murder-state PR, royal/rustic romance, a grieving Queen, how to poison a tyrant and the political protest to end them all ... or will it?
Tuesday 14th February - AGONY & ECSTASY
Six short stories, sexy & sad, frank & funny, riding the highs & lows of love, lust & everything in between. Meet agony aunts, lost loves, AI relationship mediators, singletons going spare, pill-popping avant-garde artists, mothers in despair & horny Victorian teens.
PAST EVENTS 2022: (click on the theme name to read, listen to & watch the stories for that month)
Tuesday 13th December - HOPES & FEARS
Hopes! Fears! Drunks! Turkeys! Skulls! Cats! Divorce! ... and all the other things that make Christmas so special. As usual, the festive season is a positive rollercoaster of emotions and our Hopes & Fears Christmas event gave one hell of a ride. We stuffed our stocking with Hollywood noir, skull-stealing students, escapologist turkeys, cats up chimneys, and quietly tragic YouTube instructional videos.
Tuesday 11th October - SKULL & CROSSBONES
Avast! We'd a scurvy sackful of swashbuckling stories for you this month, to chill your blood and shiver your timbers in time for Hallowe'en. There's sea-swept ghosts, grave-robbing, meat-smuggling, heart-eating, demonic middle-management, skulls, bones, vampires, zombies and of course PIRATES!
Tuesday 9th August - WOMEN & GIRLS
Our 6th annual night of fantastic female-led fiction was back for its sixth year! We had flying mums, snake-haired temptresses, content-mill drones, horror from the loch, and an (after)life lived through refrigerator magnets, all performed live.
Tuesday 12th April - COLOUR & VISION
Five fantastic pieces of new fiction, from folk-horror to domestic drama, contemporary comedy to dark fantasy, by UK-based writers of colour with roots in Mauritius, Nigeria, China, Cambodia & Armenia, read by our amazing actors!
Our line-up of seven seasonal stories (six live) featured everything you need for the perfect Christmas:
PAST EVENTS 2019: (click on the theme name to read, listen to and watch the stories for that month)
Tuesday December 3rd - SUGAR & SPICE: And all things nice, are what tempt us this December ... From food to booze, surprise presents to kisses under the mistletoe, spice it up or keep it sweet for Christmastime.
Tuesday October 8th - TOIL & TROUBLE: Spiritual cannibals, lovelorn witches, talking corpses, ghosts on fire, Dracula's estate agent, and the shade of a post-punk icon haunted our hallucinations this Hallowe'en: click the event title if you're in the market for terror, and the mood for trouble.
Tuesday August 13th - WOMEN & GIRLS: Our female-led fiction night returned for its third triumphant year! Six authors, from the US, Ireland, Australia and UK gave us tales of witty bankers, hyper-connected dystopias, vulpine lovers, lonely Durham teens, Snow White gone wrong, and dating dilemmas of the giant spider. Check out last year's winners here: WOMEN & GIRLS 2018.
Tuesday June 11th - INFINITY & BEYOND: Our sci-fi-flavoured special to commemorate 50 years since the moon landings featured five forward-looking stories exploring the ultimate theme. Deep space, time-travel tourism, cryogenics gone wrong, vanishing clones, astronautical ambitions and a terrifying game of Murder in the Dark await ...
Tuesday April 9th - BEFORE & AFTER: Six superb stories of choice & change, with tipping-points & escapes, cats & cows, sex & death, poetry & fistfights, yoga & porn, bees in the Berlin Wall, a fishtank full of ghosts and, naturally, Br*xit.
Tuesday February 12th - LOVE & LUST: Pagan bonfires, lustful teens, scarlet knickers, ill-advised one-night stands, fish suppers, sex at the Imperial War Museum and - naturally - the end of civilisation. The YouTube playlist is here and the full podcast is here, for your audio-visual pleasure ...
PAST EVENTS 2018: (click on the theme name to read, listen to and watch the stories for that month)
Tuesday February 13th - KISS & TELL: From stolen kisses to cartoon crushes, telltale spirits to synaesthetic lovers, via vengeful exes and Powerpoint presentations we showcased tales of lust, romance & betrayal in our dirt-dishing Valentine's special.
Tuesday April 10th - SMALL & BEAUTIFUL: Action heroes, Irish farmers, murderers, museum guards, cuckolds, crosswords, paint colours, relationship accelerants and a man who starts growing balloons all over his body featured in the ten wild, weird and wonderful flash fiction stories at our 11th birthday special.
Tuesday June 12th - RISE & FALL: Join a curate fallen from grace, a Titan of tiddlywinks, a neurotic adverb, a plummeting playwright and Prince Harry himself on a rocket-powered rollercoaster ride through triumph and failure. (You can also learn some Irish Gaelic from the world's most terrifying teacher ...)
Tuesday August 14th - WOMEN & GIRLS: From teenage hookers to tantruming mamas, via jobless pyromaniacs, truant wives and sarcastic schoolgirls, we showcased five fantastic female-led stories in our annual all-women special.
Tuesday October 9th - TRICK & TREAT: Those who braved the shadow-haunted Pit of Terror (A.K.A the Phoenix's basement bar) encountered monsters in the cupboard, death up a ginnel, the dread Castle Woebetide, four feral sisters, Wanda the Witch Wench, and even Death himself ...
Tuesday December 11th - NAUGHTY & NICE: Our Christmas special (and afterparty) was held at The Albany pub (downstairs bar), 240 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QU and featured seasonal shoplifting, sexy sourdough, kidnapped gifts, naughty little girls & Santa vs the Special Forces.
PAST EVENTS 2017: (click on the theme name to read the stories for that month)
Tuesday February 14th - MATE & DATE ... Five fantastic stories to sweep you off your feet, with sex parties, dirty weekends, forbidden love, runaway genitals, furniture-building with exes and the world's worst babysitter.
Tuesday March 14th - RACK & RUIN: When it's all going to crap, what do you do? Write a story about it of course! Send us your most disastrous tales of failure, loss, catastrophe, tragedy, incompetence, idiocy, bankrupts, profligates, ruined castles, shipwrecks, dissipated fortunes and luckless inheritors.
Tuesday April 11th - TRUTH & LIES: Our 10th birthday spectacular featured tales of body doubles & hipster couples, gay deceptions, quiz prodigies, shattered soldiers & an actor who just won't stick to the script ...
Tuesday May 9th - CUT & THRUST: Not just dashing swordplay and deadly duels, but the stab of a stiletto, the slice of a scalpel, the bloody blade of betrayal and the glory of a gladiator star in this month's stories. Also features knitting sleuths and creepy bunny masks.
Tuesday June 13th - QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Our June show featured absurdist job interviews, mystical cold-callers, teachers in meltdown, marriages in crisis, an exam paper in life itself and the answer to the world's most important question - or was it?
Tuesday July 11th - HEADS & TAILS: Our July competition-winning stories concerned OAPs with antlers, gold-toothed skulls, and words gone a-wandering ...
AUGUST - WE WENT ON HOLIDAY!
Tuesday September 12th - WOMEN & GIRLS: They ruled Prince's world (80s pop reference) and for one month only there was a female takeover of the League, with six superb stories written by women, about women, for everyone.
Tuesday October 10th - DEATH & TAXES: In the run-up to Hallowe'en, whether you were a bereaved lover or an insurance hawker, a hapless (soon to be limbless) couch potato or officially dead - from rural pig-farm to suburban slaughterhouse, there was no escape from DEATH & TAXES!
Tuesday November 14th - BROTHERS & SISTERS: Love them or loathe them, you have to live with them - so this month we've got six stories of siblings for you to squabble over, from hired brothers to tribes of mermaids, via stoned Georgians, ghostly twins, dark family secrets and a surprising sibling love-triangle ...
Tuesday December 5th - SACRED & PROFANE: From swearing vicars to Yuletide arson, via a museum of sacred & profane marvels, awkward Christmas visits and belligerent snowmen, our Christmas event at The Wheatsheaf was a mouthwatering selection box of short story goodness!
PAST EVENTS 2016: (click on the theme name to go to the stories for that month)
Tuesday 9 February - CLEAN & DIRTY ... Dirty dictionaries and OCD romance, marriage inspectors, vengeful cleaners, amateur p0rn in IKEA, and at least two things to do with Marigold gloves.
Tuesday 8 March - JUSTICE & MERCY ... Tales of disputed virginity & disgraced royalty, absconding prisoners, eager-to-please executioners, a taste of post-apocalyptic justice, & the thoughts of an actual fly on the wall.
Tuesday 12 April - HUNDREDS & THOUSANDS ... From clifftop dives to dirty uncles, fairytale slumbers to the end of the world, we celebrated our 100th event (and 9th birthday) with ten flash fiction stories of 100 and 1000 words each.
Tuesday 10 May - STAGE & SCREEN ... Explosions, escapes, killer gum, animal masks, Shakespeare, and murders which are almost certainly sexually motivated. Don't wait for the DVD - click above to check out our videos!
Tuesday 14 June - PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES ... Our summer travel special features trains (model and life-size),planes, cars, ships, bikes, trucks and even buses, as well as stolen identities, missed flights, sinister AA men and - what else? - the end of the world as we know it (nothing to do with Brexit ...)
Tuesday 12 July - GENIUS & MADNESS ... naked artists & obsessive scientists, Apple "geniuses" & prog-rock guitarists, crazy love & beautiful misfits.
Friday 22 July - NATIONAL GALLERY INSPIRATION LATE ... Competition-winning stories inspired by paintings on display at the Gallery, featuring ugly duchesses, stalking tigers, conquering heroes, breastfeeding virgins & more.
Tuesday 9 August - WORK & PLAY ... The holiday month of August sees tales of leisure and labour, including demonic harassment in the workplace, death while shopping, postmortem amdram and the ultimate room of nightmares.
Tuesday 13th September - GODS & MORTALS ... A sassy Satan, a Yorkshire Charon, the Irish god of poetry and love, the Almighty in a Mexican prison, Dionysus at AA, Baron Samedi on a Bradford bus, and (what else?) guineapigs.
Tuesday 11th October - FLESH & BONE ... For Hallowe'en, the League presents spinetingling stories to make your flesh creep, starring dead wives, zombie boyfriends, scarecrows, gravediggers and brain parasites.
Tuesday 8 November - US & THEM ... November's stories feature baby rats, traumatised soldiers, uppity moths, self-consuming metafiction, 80s action figures, and a very sinister housing committee.
Tuesday 13 December - LIGHT & DARK ... The season of light, love and lurid jumpers has its dark side too. Rebel elves, obscene Christmas lights, Secret Santa, appalling family dinners and even Ebenezer Scrooge feature this month.
PAST EVENTS 2015: (click on the theme name to go to the stories for that month)
Tuesday 10 February - BEAUTIFUL & DAMNED ... We kicked off the month of love with your tales of gorgeous girls and heartbreaking men, doomed youth, cursed souls and starcrossed love.
January - LIARS' LEAGUE'S ANNUAL POST-CHRISTMAS BREAK
Tuesday 11 February - YOU & ME ... Two-sided stories for Valentine's Day, featuring unicorns, multiple murder, online dating, high art and highwaymen.
Tuesday 11 March - TRUTH & DARE ... Snipe hunters, coups, booze, Hoxton tw*ts, kitchen nudity, forgetful murderers and Death personified ... twice.
Tuesday 8th April - SLINGS & ARROWS ... Shakespeare, zombie porn, paintball, PTSD, knights and hangings.
Tuesday 13 May - BEGINNING & END ... Featuring birth, death, Aussie fishermen, rat pies, three people stuck in a lift and the end of the world.
Tuesday 10 June - WEIRD & WONDERFUL ... With a cast of beautifully bizarre characters including a psychopathic doppelganger, a cynical mermaid, an Amazonian tree god and a suburban centauress.
Tuesday July 8 - SONS & DAUGHTERS ... Foul-mouthed little girls, macho dads, promiscuous mums, wayward sons, and pig-eating cows (don't ask). Also, Star Wars!
Tuesday August 12 - BEAUTY & BEAST ... Dragons, stagbeetles, ballerinas, swans, horses and nudists.
Tuesday September 9 - HIGH & LOW ... A rollercoaster ride of high art, low life, soft drugs, hard luck, empathy machines, building jumpers, wirewalkers and the world's most embarrassing dad.
Tuesday October 14 - SLASH & BURN ... Ghosts, cowboys, psychic twins, murderous rats, deals with the devil and Spock and Kirk in a clinch.
Tuesday November 11 - VICE & VIRTUE ... Hookers, pimps, gluttons, pussies, spacegoing saints & Lambini-fuelled sex advice on a council estate.
Tuesday December 9 - MISTLETOE & WINE ... Mistletoe tattoos, Swinging Sixties parties, birthday wining and dining as a relationship fractures, Jesus, Rudolph, and not one but TWO appearances of the German anti-Santa Krampus.
PAST EVENTS 2013: (click on the theme name to go to the stories for that month)
January - LIARS' LEAGUE'S ANNUAL POST-CHRISTMAS BREAK
Tuesday 12 February - SHORT & SWEET ... Eight fabulous flash fictions featuring dinosaurs, pilots, surfers, special economic advisers, acupuncturists, the morning after and 1950s dental disaster.
Tuesday 12 March - SONG & DANCE Six stories to get you humming along and tapping your feet.
Tuesday 9 April - TWIST & TURN Mistresses, murder, pudding and phone trees - all with a twist.
Tuesday 14 May - MAN & MACHINE Five technological tales featuring predator drones, cars, robots and reel-to-reel.
Tuesday 11 June - KINGS & QUEENS Gay proms, drunken French elephants, royal betrayals, shipwrecks and the spirit of Elvis Presley.
Tuesday 9 July - HOPE & GLORY Meet Oscar Wilde and a very dependent Beyonce, a would-be seductive Russian Count, a modern-day buccanneer, a lonely factory worker and a man on a time-loop date.
Tuesday 13 August - LIFE & LIMB Danger! Peril! Sex! Suicide! Flying men! Talking crows! Bonsai! And hikers!
Tuesday 10 September - BUSINESS & PLEASURE Work & leisure, sex in the office etc.
Tuesday 8 October - DEAD & BURIED Scary stories for Hallowe'en - ghosts, zombies & murderers.
November - CLOAK & DAGGER - Betrayal! Secrets! Conspiracies!And lots of stabbing ...
December - SNOW & STARS - Seasonal stories for Christmas, including a very NSFW one about Santa on a coke binge.
PAST EVENTS 2012: (click on the theme name to go to the stories chosen that month)
Tuesday 14 Feb, 2012 - KISS & KILL ... Our darkly lovestruck special for Valentine's Day.
Tuesday 13 March, 2012 - HIRED & FIRED ... Stories of work: evil bosses, faceless corporations, underlings.
Tuesday 10 April, 2012 - WET & WILD ... Tales of sea and shore, jungles urban and emotional.
Tuesday 8 May 2012 - TIME & SPACE ... Science fiction time-jumping and a very unusual pregnancy.
Tuesday 12 June 2012 - COUNTRY & WESTERN ... Stories about the country, American West, and music.
Tuesday 10 July 2012 - SWEAT & TEARS ... A salty, sporty special for the London Olympics.
Tuesday 14 August 2012 - LAW & ORDER ... Bail-jumpers, social workers, petty criminals & a donkey.
Tuesday 11 September 2012 - FOOD & DRINK ... Tasty tales to make your mouth water.
Tuesday 9 October 2012 - TOOTH & CLAW ... Creepy automata, murderous pensioners, monsters, beasts, etc.
Tuesday 13 November 2012 - TREASON & PLOT ... Betrayals in love, business, family or politics; lost plots, grave-plots, murder plots and tangled plots ... to keep the Bonfire Night fires burning!
Tuesday 19 December 2012 - ANGELS & DEMONS ... Frostbitten nannies, incompetent angels, little devils, pissed bankers and a brothel of death.