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    Bizarre Fables
    Bizarre Fables
    Bizarre Fables
    Ebook174 pages2 hours

    Bizarre Fables

    By Gary Bills

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    About this ebook

    True collaboration is often a strange business and in the case of the “Bizarre Fables”, the collaboration was between husband and wife. Heather would draw and paint, while the plots developed organically. Gary and Heather shared their visions, day after day and night after night, while the owls hooted incessantly from nearby trees and barns.

    The plots developed organically, naturally. From Heather came the idea of a gross man who would find himself pregnant, – the theme of “Bread for Toggle”. Also from Heather came the initial idea of a powerful old woman whose soul was captured in a box – a box that was then bound tight with briar. She actually dreamed this, and her husband, Gary, who wrote all the fables, was inspired by her dream. This, of course, was the origin of “Grandma’s Soul”. There were other strange happenings surrounding the genesis of these tales. The story called “The Blossom Maker” was written in just two hours, as if the writer was taking dictation from a spirit.

    Simply by looking at the blossom on the trees, together with the experience of being husband and wife during their first spring together, led to stories which needed to be written. In fact, Heather and Gary were so inspired in those days, it is perhaps a valid question to ask why more tales were not created.

    We can suppose the only answer is that they came as if by magic, and magic must always have a beginning and an end. Its power is a blessing, but it is finite.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXinXii
    Release dateDec 1, 2018
    ISBN9783962462451
    Bizarre Fables
    Author

    Gary Bills

    Gary Bills worked for many years as a journalist. He is currently the fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake, which is based in Italy, and he is enjoying the completion of his MA in Creative Writing, at Birmingham City University. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ, Acumen and The Lothlorien Poetry Journal. He has had three full collections published, namely “The Echo and the Breath” (Peterloo Poets, 2001); “The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart” (bluechrome, 2003); and “Laws for Honey” (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited “The Review of Contemporary Poetry” for bluechrome. Gary has given professional readings at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, Poetry on the Lake in Italy, and at the Poetry Trend Munich Festival. His work has been translated into German, Romanian and Italian. The Little French, published his first novel, “A Letter for Alice” in 2019, and a collection of stories, “Bizarre Fables”, in 2021. These were illustrated by his wife, Heather E. Geddes.

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      Book preview

      Bizarre Fables - Gary Bills

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