Spill the Beans Challenge Stories Poems: Book 3

By Spill The Beans NSW Inc

This compilation of short stories and poems from our community is an exciting collection based around three challenges. Our diverse group of writers had to write no more than 400 words on the topics of New Beginnings, Funny and Freaky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Purple Pineapple Publishing
• Release date: Dec 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645620610

Book preview

SPILL THE BEANS acknowledges the custodians of the land on which we write, and we pay our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.

WELCOME TO THE STORIES AND POEMS FROM OUR

SPILL THE BEANS WRITING COMMUNITY

Congratulations to the forty-seven wonderful writers whose stories and poems were selected to be part of this third Spill the Beans book. We received over one hundred entries for challenges eight, nine and ten, from writers with a broad range of writing experiences.

Our writing community started in 2020, when three women with a good idea, decided to start a ‘coffee shop’ writing group. We were amazed and delighted in 2022, when our writing community grew to over 70 online members who regularly share their writing through our challenges.

We could not have produced this book without the support of writers and the financial backing of Catherine Wilson of STONE Real Estate Manly. Thank you!

We welcome all writers, regardless of age, cultures and writing experience, so why not give your writing a kick start by joining our writing community. Go to spillthebeans.net.au or join us at one of our events.

I hope you enjoy these stories and poems as much as we have. Maybe we will read one of your pieces in our next book.

Happy writing.

Julie Howard

President

Spill the Beans NSW INC

December 2022

Clothes Make the Man: Paul Dufficy

New Beginnings: Cindy Davies

A Hundred Questions Unanswered: Alice String

A Heartbeat: Stephen Cardew

ABBA Nights: John Wells

Home: Jamie Brooke

Permanent Residency: Cynthia Sappracone

In Love with New beginnings: Michael Morgan

Hallo Sydney: Branka Kringas

A New Beginning: Felicity Pulman

One door closes: Julie Howard

Sunlight through a window: Anonymous

Upside Down: Danielle Colby

New Beginnings: Leanne Russell

Shirt-fronted at Changi: Deb Lewis-Bizley

An adventure with Betty Bush: Julie Dawson

The Captain Stood on the Burning Deck: Margaret Thew

Irene Bursts Her Bubble: Julie Howard

Tunnel Vision: Garry Egger

It’s Mine, It’s Mine: Michael Morgan

A Bedtime Story: Barbara Caldicott

A Good Royal Shake: Jenny Sheehan

The Case of the Missing Diary-True Story: Titania

The Haunting: Kim Hamilton

All Around Man: Paul Dufficy

Colour blind – Richard Karl Vasey

Identity Crisis: Vivien Wilson

‘How Embarrassing!’: Anna McEnroe

No Match: Beatrice Yell

Aldi: Leone Flemons

Revenge of the Sap Suckers: Ambra Sancin

Bellbird Hullabaloo: Penny Walker

Good Sons: Helen Lyne

Too Much Joy: Yvonne Best

Sneaky the Mouse: Sarah Cowper

Last Will and Testicles: Cindy Davies

The Train Standing at Platform 4: Dan Coyle

Elmo the Sneaky Bed Mate: Karen Hendriks

French Magic: Susan Steggall

Night Train to Paris: Janne Seletto

Very Juicy Mangos: Branka Kringas

Orange Crush: Sandra Faase

45 Minutes Only: Branka Kringas

The Woman in the Wheelchair: Janne Seletto

Walking with the Three Sisters: Julie Howard

The Voices: Joy Nason

Scared and Never Went Back: Dan Coyle

Freaky Thoughts: Barbara Caldicott

Science is Golden: Kirsten Larsdotter

A French Ghost: Vivien Wilson

Just Another Night Shift: Margaret Hardy

Mystery Solved: Leone Flemons

Every time we say Goodbye: Julie Dawson

A Tree: Stephen Cardew

The Rat: Sandra Faase

Night Signals: Felicity Pulman

Wake in Fright: Richard Karl Vasey

Diary of a ghost: Laurie Wilson

Void: Amy Hutton

Click: Cindy Davies

Freaky Scary Weird Strange: Wendy Margaret

Freedom: Trina Ehsan

Webcam: Emma Floyd

Some Freaky Anecdotes: Sarah Cowper

Courage I Don’t Lack: Helen Lyne

Freaky: Kathy Robinson

The Dark Room: Steve Fuger

Over the Edge: Ben Stewart

Locked Inside: Karen Henricks

Congratulations to all our wonderful writers.

Want to read your stories or poems online or in print?

Come and join the Beans writing community.

Scan here or go to spillthebeans.net.au

FROM OUR BOOK EDITORS: SARAH COWPER & JANNE SELETTO

A new year has brought several new challenges to whet our appetites. Spill the Beans launched Book 2 at a fun filled morning at La Boca café in May 2022, and then the pace picked up again for Challenge 8 stories and poems for New Beginnings. We read about birth, the loss of loved ones, and travels to new places and new homes.

Our Challenge 9 had everyone in stitches reading our hilarious Funny 400 stories and poems. We had red faced and embarrassed neighbours, sneaky mice and dogs, cats playing chess, juicy oranges and mangoes making appearances and fabulous and funny adventures.

We then flipped the switch in our 10th Challenge to weird and wonderful, with the Freaky 400. Your stories and poems of ghosts, malevolent trees and houses that may have been haunted, made our hair stand on end. Stories and poems of ghostly nights in scary hotels, things that go ‘tap’ in the night, itinerant rats and people in cults kept us entertained. There were voices hanging in the air, frightening nightmares, and an education in the origin of Halloween.

We’ve loved what you have written so far and look forward to reading your stories and poems in 2023.

Sarah Cowper and Janne Seletto

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN: PAUL DUFFICY

When I finally left boarding school, I needed to learn how the world worked. That, and what the hell do I wear? My civilian wardrobe was virtually nonexistent. Mum took pity on me, and we travelled into town and went to the David Jones men’s store on Market Street. A flamboyant assistant suggested a combination outfit that Mum thought was quite smart. I was in a thick fog of uncertainty. Shortly afterwards I was invited to a party. I was in my new outfit and if truth be told I looked a bit like Thurston Howell III from Gilligan’s Island. I think most of the girls there thought so too. I quietly retired the sky blue double-breasted, wide-lapelled, silver buttoned, sports jacket to St Vincent de Paul the following Monday.

That still left me in a bit of a dilemma. Work was fine because I was in uniform all day but the weekends? When Steve asked me over to his place on the Northern Beaches one weekend, I went through my brother Tony’s hand-me-downs and found a kind of fishnet T-shirt / singlet and shorts. This outfit was completed by my sandshoes and football socks. Since I looked like I had just failed to get a part in the off-Broadway crowd scene of West Side Story it came as little surprise I suppose to be ridiculed on Dee Why beach. Whatever way I looked at it I realised that I needed to keep my full-time job and in the meantime scope out where young men my age bought clothes. As it turned out, to get what I wanted to wear I had to leave the country.

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