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Tabitha Potts
Alpine Writing Prize Shortlist
Writing

Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize

by tabithapotts 27th June 2022
written by tabithapotts

I was checking through my submissions when I discovered that I had made it to the shortlist for the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize for a short story I sent to them on the theme of freedom. It’s an extraordinary prize which invites winners and runners-up to participate in their international symposium.

I’m extremely honoured to have reached this stage alongside some wonderful writers. I often wonder if I am too thin-skinned to be a professional writer, but then something like this happens and I remember that the magic and the excitement is what it is all about, the chance to spark something in a reader’s imagination and that I feel is enough to make the endless rejections worthwhile.

27th June 2022 0 comment
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Photo of Liberal Democrat candidates for Mile End Ward
Liberal Democrats

I am standing for the Mile End Ward as a Liberal Democrat Councillor

by tabithapotts 27th March 2022
written by tabithapotts

I am proud to say I am standing for the Liberal Democrat Party as a councillor in the local elections for Tower Hamlets. I grew up on Brick Lane and have lived in Stepney and now Bow for many years apart from some time spent living abroad in the USA and Spain. While living in Spitalfields I volunteered and worked as a teacher of ESOL to local women and in Stepney I successfully campaigned to keep a local adventure playground open and ran a playgroup as well as setting up a small business selling eco friendly children’s products. I write for a local paper, Roman Road London, as a ‘citizen journalist’ and I live and work in the East End.

I am particularly interested in the environment and if elected, I will campaign to improve the borough’s air quality which is currently among the worst in the UK. I would like to see more rewilding of our green spaces, a total ban on the use of glyphosate, more trees planted, more electric charging points for cars, an improvement in our recycling and rubbish collection and more provision for cyclists and pedestrians. The pandemic has taught us how important nature is for mental health as well as physical. I’d like to see as much done as possible to get greener, cheaper energy to residents of the borough and to help them insulate their homes.

I’d like a more equal, greener and cleaner borough for us all to enjoy.

27th March 2022 0 comment
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Writing

New audio flash fiction for Prompety Prompt

by tabithapotts 25th February 2022
written by tabithapotts

I was asked by the fabulous Prompety Prompt to contribute a spoken word piece to their podcast, which gives writers a set of prompts to use to create their work. The one I found most inspiring was ‘Someone keeps sending you severed heads of birds’ (yes, that might well mean I’m slightly weird, but what’s a girl to do?). Here is the video they made for it, and I hope you enjoy listening.

25th February 2022 0 comment
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A new short story of mine, The Necropolis Railway, is now on the Story Radio Podcast

by tabithapotts 5th February 2022
written by tabithapotts

It’s a story inspired by reading about the famous ‘ghost train’ and is set in the Victorian era. You can listen to it (with captions) on Youtube below.

5th February 2022 0 comment
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Ship
LivingWriting

Happy New Year

by tabithapotts 31st December 2021
written by tabithapotts

I have spent a great deal of 2021 in the doldrums, a term I first encountered in that excellent children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth. It can mean a period of stagnation or depression, and in sailing, it refers to an area near the equator where ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters.

I have been extremely fortunate in many ways during this pandemic: no one in my family has been badly affected by Covid-19, I work remotely for a great employer and I have time for my other interests, such as my podcast, Story Radio. Despite all this, I have struggled with my creative writing this year and have only written one short story and about three new chapters of my novel, which I am revising. I have been submitting to agents (mainly) but have only managed slightly less than half the amount of submissions I did in 2020 (I keep track of these using Duotrope). Sometimes it’s hard to keep the motivation and drive to keep writing and putting yourself out there, as a quick scroll through writers’ Twitter will tell you.

However, I’ve just returned from a wonderful and much-needed holiday where I also managed to get a scuba-diving certificate. I was born by the sea and I think I am happiest when I am close to it. Being able to dive among the fish and coral and relax in the sunshine afterwards felt like a huge privilege after this long and frequently dreary year. I’ve chosen a photo of a beautiful ship I took on this holiday as I’m hoping that the doldrums will end in 2022 and I can start moving forwards once more. I can only wish the same to all of you – Happy New Year!

31st December 2021 0 comment
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Shepherd's hut
PodcastWriting

Winter

by tabithapotts 30th November 2021
written by tabithapotts

It’s been a long and difficult year, although with vaccines we are at least seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought you would like to see this photo of the restored gamekeeper’s hut where I’ve been spending time writing and producing my podcast when I’m in Norfolk. If you listen to the podcast, you will occasionally be able to hear the birds singing in the garden.

We have added a new podcast, Rat Trap by Rebecca Lee, for you to listen to tomorrow and I am planning to read another of my own short stories in February 2022. We are taking a break in January after two years of back-to-back episodes. It has been wonderful being able to produce these magical little podcasts throughout the pandemic and collaborate with so many talented authors and actors.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve added a members-only area to the website, where you will be able to read more unpublished stories and writing. If you sign up for the trial period of one month, you will be able to download my illustrated book of short stories in Kindle format for £5. I’d love to hear your feedback about this idea, which means I can share more of my unpublished as well as my published stories.

I am still writing book reviews for Roman Road London – you can read my recent review of Graves of Whitechapel by Claire Evans there and they will shortly feature another of Vicky Newman’s Out of the Ashes.

Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday, and I’ll see you on the other side.

30th November 2021 0 comment
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Halloween Pumpkin
PodcastWriting

Happy Halloween

by tabithapotts 31st October 2021
written by tabithapotts

After the disappointment that was summer this year, I’ve found myself really loving Autumn – the colours of the leaves in the woods, the moody skies, the abundance of strange-looking mushrooms. I enjoy this time of year and the otherworldly feeling as Halloween draws near. I’ve always liked dressing up for this event and have many photographs of my children cavorting around dressed as wizards and werewolves although they are (mostly) too grown up for this now. This photo is taken from a special Halloween trip we took on Norfolk’s Poppy Line.

I’ve been making some changes to my website using Memberpress. Soon, if you would like to you will be able to buy a membership allowing you to view even more stories and content. Writers often suffer from a double-bind; it can take a long time to get a story published, but if a writer publishes it on their own website it is then ineligible for publication elsewhere. If a writer hopes to publish a collection (traditionally), about half of the stories in it need to be unpublished. I have a collection I hope to publish eventually but I would like to start sharing the stories now.

I am using Memberpress as it is a good way of getting around this problem. Newsletter subscribers will have seen my free PDF of short stories: I will have a Kindle version available for sale on this site shortly and may publish more short stories in this format. The membership will give you a new short story via email every two months as well as the monthly newsletter and discounts on publications.

Meanwhile, if you would like to enjoy some short stories for Halloween, here are some of mine, Swing Me, Crow Girl, Hagstone and (from my podcast) Call Bird.

31st October 2021 0 comment
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The Cabinet of Curiosities

by tabithapotts 3rd October 2021
written by tabithapotts

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3rd October 2021 0 comment
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Photograph from Viktor Wynd's Museum of Curiosities
Writing

The Cabinet of Curiosities to be published in print anthology

by tabithapotts 31st July 2021
written by tabithapotts

I’ve been a little quiet on here recently as although life has been busy, I haven’t had much writing news to share. I’m happy to say that that is about to change as one of my pieces, a short story about innocence and experience set in the eighteenth century (with more than a passing nod to Angela Carter) is coming out in print. The story will be available in Part 2 of the printed anthology, which is available in two parts – or you can buy the complete version.

I’ve always been fascinated by curiosity cabinets and I decided to use them as a metaphor for the idea of forbidden knowledge. This story was also long-listed for the University of Sunderland Short Story in Association with Waterstones Award in 2019.

Writer’s Egg Magazine, an award-winning new writing literary magazine (print and online) is publishing this anthology and you can buy it from their shop from August 1st onwards.

31st July 2021 0 comment
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Engraving of a nightingale
Writing

Singing with Nightingales

by tabithapotts 23rd April 2021
written by tabithapotts

I happened to see an email from Tower Hamlets Council asking residents to contribute to a recording, A Nightingale Sang in Pollard Square, run by Sam Lee of the Nest Collective. Every year Sam Lee records nightingales – which only sing between April and May in the UK – at night with the help of other singers and artists.

I wanted to write something for this performance (which was part of the celebration of St George’s Day in the borough) and was inspired by the fairy tale, The Nightingale, written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about an Emperor who prefers the tinkling of a bejewelled mechanical bird to the song of a real nightingale. When the Emperor is near death, the nightingale’s song restores his health.

So many of us, including myself, have taken so much comfort from nature, including the birdsong we could suddenly hear, during the pandemic. The story of the nightingale that could heal the dying man is very relevant to us all in these strange times.

I tried to think of a way to retell this old fairy tale while reading about nightingales – which are now on the Red List – and ended up with a different idea: a nightingale in a museum, a holographic representation of the real thing, telling us how it became extinct. We need to save these amazing birds so that we are not left only with mechanical nightingales instead of the real thing.

You can hear my recorded piece just after the beginning of the video, and I’m honoured to be part of this beautiful recording.

23rd April 2021 0 comment
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Newer Posts
Older Posts
Read my stories on Kindle

RSS Listen to Story Radio Podcast (hosted by Tabitha Potts)

  • Interview with Helen Fields author of The Institution 1st March 2023
    In this episode Martin Nathan and Tabitha Potts speak to best-selling crime novelist Helen Fields, criminal law barrister turned writer, about her new book The Institution. The Institution is a nail-biting psychological thriller about a criminal profiler, Dr Connie Woolwine, who goes undercover in a high security prison hospital while she tries to solve the […]
    Helen Fields
  • A terrible thing has happened by Elinora Westfall 1st February 2023
    It is March 1941 during the Second World War, and a young evacuee, Tabitha, is fascinated by the stories about a famous author who lives nearby. Content warning: contains references to suicide. The story is written and read by Elinora Westfall. Influenced by David Bowie, Virginia Woolf and Sally Wainwright, Elinora Westfall is a lesbian […]
    Elinora Westfall
  • Life in the dressing room of the theatre 1st January 2023
    This short story is about a young woman whose heart is stolen by a mysterious magician. The story is written and read by Elinora Westfall. Influenced by David Bowie, Virginia Woolf and Sally Wainwright, Elinora Westfall is an Australian/British lesbian actress and writer of stage, screen, fiction, poetry and radio from the UK. Her novel, […]
    Elinora Westfall

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Recent Posts

  • Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize

    27th June 2022
  • I am standing for the Mile End Ward as a Liberal Democrat Councillor

    27th March 2022
  • New audio flash fiction for Prompety Prompt

    25th February 2022
  • A new short story of mine, The Necropolis Railway, is now on the Story Radio Podcast

    5th February 2022
  • Happy New Year

    31st December 2021

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Tabitha Potts
  • Home
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