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Moving from 1930s Camden to a Royal Wedding "riot", via football fights, office steeplechases and awkward dates in art galleries, London Lies is a bizarre, funny, moving and sometimes unnerving glimpse into the secret life of the city we all love and know.Featuring nineteen writers and twenty-three stories showcased at award-winning monthly live literature event, London's Liars' League.

From tigers in a South London suburb to retired Victorian police inspectors investigating train based thefts, from collectors of poets at Shadwell to life-changing decisions in Canonbury, by way of an art installation that defies the boundaries of a gallery, Stations takes a sideways look through the windows of the Overground train, at life as it is, or might be, lived beside the rails: quirky, humorous and sometimes horrifying.

Delving into lecturing spiders, Helen of Troy, seaside libraries, computers that fall in love, murder and memory; but most of all humour, and a delight in all that women can be.Praise for the first edition:Cherry Potts writes with economy, punch, panache. - Ellen GalfordDefinitely about women in space, not the usual glossy tomboys of standard sf. - Gwyneth JonesDelightful … both a hilarious spoof of one-man-and-his computer myths such as 2001, a Space Odyssey; and a reflection on the limits of love and power. - Zoë Fairbairns

Just as Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book reworked Kipling’s The Jungle Book for a modern audience with a liking for the supernatural, Devilskein & Dearlove is a darker, more edgy, contemporary reworking of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic The Secret Garden. An orphaned teenager is taken in by a reluctant distant relative, and in her new home makes an unexpected friend and finds a secret realm. It has shades of the quirky fantastical in the style of Miyazaki’s (Studio Ghibli) animated films like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (originally a novel by Diana Wynne Jones).Alex says “As a child The Secret Garden was one of my first favourite novels - one of the first I relished reading by myself. Although Devilskein & Dearlove is very different, it was inspired by that novel and its themes.”“Alex Smith’s quirky imagination knows no bounds.” - André Brink

The Don’t Touch Garden explores what it is to be adopted, both for the child and the adoptive parents, through a wide range of poetic styles and complex emotions.An absorbing account of the legacy of being an adopted child. Forthright and tender, this moving sequence reflects Foley’s unflinching gaze into the mirror in a sometimes excoriating attempt to discern traces of her belonging, and to make peace with the past. Joy Howard, Poet, publisher and former Fostering Services Manager

Nine years after the loss of her sister, and near obliteration of her clan in an ill conceived raid, Brede, a plains’ nomad, is living unwillingly in the marshes. The sudden ending of a decade long drought, brings with it many changes; rumour has it that the rain was bought at the price of a King’s head, and the sword needed for such a sacrifice is missing.Change comes for Brede in the arrival of Tegan, a wounded mercenary.Brede’s discovery, first of the Dowry Blade and a stolen horse, and then of Tegan’s history, sets in train a journey to the capital in search of her missing sister and leads to an unexpected role in the Queen’s household, and a powerful lover.

In 2014 Photographer Tom Dingley set up his #Outcome project - to photograph LGBT people with the attributes of their everyday life - their work, or their interests; and holding a picture of themself as a child. The message was, no matter how hard it is growing up, no matter who you were, you become who you become, and you are amazing.Two years and several exhibitions later, this is the Outcome. Portraits from all walks of life: Performers, Artists, Writers, Cooks, Bloggers, Campaigners, Politicians, Volunteers, Diplomats, Entrepreneurs, Journalists, Health Care professionals, Engineers, Pilots, athletes, Plant Hunters, Shamans, Teachers , Students... from a peer of the realm to the woman next door, this is a book about celebration, not celebrity. The exhibition and photographing continues, travelling around the UK as more people are added to the archive.

Drawing together Jennifer A. McGowan’s poetry of myth and folktale, and the frailties – human or otherwise – behind them, With Paper for Feet explores, mostly from a female perspective, the guts it takes to live or – often – die, un-heroically. Her characters laugh, argue, complain, suffer, curse....Gold is heavy,and chafes....aware that more is expected of them, but unwilling to play up.Praise for Jennifer A. McGowan’s work...gritty thought; wit; striking candour – an unafraid recognitionof life’s richness and desolation; memorable detail; all these are underpinned by a graceful, subtle, quite lovely way with language. Kevin Crossley-Holland...bedecked with wit, irony, bittersweet folly and dictional-shifts jazzy enough to make a reader dance. Gray Jacobik... precise, observant and deep into mythology. Claribel Alegría

The Duke looks out from his castle, and everything he can see for miles and miles belongs to him. Everything, except one small strong house, with a small garden two goats and a beehive. They belong to the old woman from Friuli. The Duke wants that house, but the old woman, she won’t sell. She’s from Friuli, where all the really stubborn people come from.Ghillian Potts is now 83. She has been writing continuously, both prose and verse, since she was 7. She once got out of a bit of housework by saying, “Must I, Mum? I’m writing a Poem!” in her best whine. To her amazement, her mum at once said, “Oh, all right, I’ll do it!” Obviously, writing was a Good Thing. She had a number of stories for younger children published in the 1990s, one of which featured on Jackanory. Illustrator Ed Boxall is an artist, print maker, writer and creative educator living in Hastings, England.

On her twelfth birthday Brat’s father disappears. She waits, but he never comes back. When she goes looking she is laughed at, and her belongings stolen. Reduced to begging and determined to find out what has happened to him, she falls in with Gray and Baylock, whom she quickly discovers are outlaws, but there is far more to either of them than a falling out with the law, and Brat find that nothing is simple, nowhere is safe, and being reunited with her family is going to be difficult, and something she may decide must wait as more pressing tasks fall into her path.Ghillian Potts is now 83. She had a number of stories for younger children published in the 1990s, one of which featured on Jackanory. Young adult novels have been written at various stages in her career, but none have been published until now.

Brook, now called Spellbinder, is working as Remembrancer to her friend Graycat, now known as Young Overlord Lady Quicksilver, when Storytellers start disappearing. Spellbinder is captured and forced to summon the Elder Dragons, but when she cannot control them, she must break her Storyteller vow and forfeit her most precious possession – her name.

The third and final book in the Brook Storyteller Series. Brook is sent by the storytellers to right a wrong, and in the process takes on an apprentice, Cricket. Far more important to her is her 'cousin' Drinks-the-wind, a Wilder wolf. Together the three of them discover a plot that puts all their friends, and even the Overlord, in danger.

Kate Foley is a much published and respected poet with many awards to her name. This, her 8th collection is made from meeting, migration and marriage: poems reflecting the journey of one poet and her wife, across linguistic and geographical boundaries - and with Brexit in the offing, it's far from over yet.

In the red corner: the muck, grit and harsh truths of life. In the blue corner: the beauty of the natural world and the vivid variety provided by imagination. Cathy Bryant is dancing about somewhere in between. To continue the boxing ring metaphor to a silly (but possibly accurate) degree, the other two corners are culture and experience, the canvas is time and I'm on the ropes of conscience.For Cathy is stuck as a misfit. Born in the south, she lives in the north. from a middle class home, she is working class by poverty and experience. She knows what it's like to be homeless, and what it's like to pick a dirty penny off the pavement and be happy to have it, and she also know the correct way to address a duchess, and whether to put the milk in first. She doesn't fit in anywhere - except at poetry events, where you can't know whether the person next to you is a convicted felon, a linguistics professor, or both.

A showcase for authors Arachne Press has published previously in anthologies, giving a wider perspective on their writing. The collection as a whole has tendency towards fantasy and magical realism, with Cassandra Passarelli’s (Liberty Tales) Guatemalan stories taking on a more gritty reality, and Katy Darby’s (London Lies, Stations, Shortest Day, Longest Night) engrossing SF and historical stories alongside Joan Taylor Rowan’s (London Lies, Lover's Lies, Stations) acid humour and modern desperation and Sarah James’ (Longest Day, Shortest Night) elliptical poet’s sensibility brought to flash fiction and Helen Morris’ (Liberty Tales, Solstice Shorts) ability to get to the heart of a story, and make you laugh out loud or weep inconsolably.

In Collaboration with Liars League. A celebration of the centenary of women in the UK getting the vote. Stories about women by women, which have been performed at one of Liars’ League’s events in London, Hong Kong, New York or Portland, Everything from fantasy and historical through magic realism to SF and humour.

The third of our #WomenVote100 Anthologies:a showcase for poets Arachne has previously published in anthologies, giving an opportunity to explore their writing in greater depth.These are poems made of myth and family, origins and anger, journeys and home: witty, clever, beautiful and sometimes harsh.Whilst not directly reflecting on the experience of women fighting for the vote, the concerns of women are foremost and are passionately addressed.My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures,instead of flattering their fascinating graces, as if they were in perpetualchildhood, unable to stand alone.From Vindication by Anne Macaulay, a found poem based on the work of Mary Wollstonecraft.

Everyone thinks of noon as being a split second as the clock's hands draw together, the bell tolls twelve times - but there is so much more to it than that - Solar noon happens as much as half an hour either side of what the clock tells you, deadlines are met, or passed, shadows vanish, vampires hide - or do they? Stories and Poems from 2018's Solstice Shorts festival, read live in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Ynys Mon, Carlisle, London and Cork on the stroke of... or nearly, Noon. Featuring stories from Barbara Renel, Clare Shaw, Diana Powell, Elaine Hughes, Karen Ankers, Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier, Liam Hogan, Lily Peters, Marka Rifat, Patience Mackarness, Roppotucha Greenberg, Su Yin Yap; and poems from Alison Gerhard, Alison Lock, Anne Elizabeth Bevan, Catriona Yule, Elinor Brooks, Gareth Culshaw, Graham Burchell, Ian Grosz, Jane Aldous, Laila Sumpton.

While working in a well-known pharmacy chain, Jeremy Dixon found surprising inspiration. His poems were written on the ends of till rolls and smuggled out in his socks. Anyone who has ever worked in retail will recognise the characters and situations, and the magnificent management absurdities; but Jeremy also bring his perspective as a gay man to bear with witty and wicked results.

The Knotsman does not exist, you will not find him in history books or collections of 'bygone' skills. But Math Jones has created him, and his fellows, in a time very like the English Civil War. There he is, going from house to house, village to village, battlefield to gallows, unravelling knots and problems, physical, emotional and psychological; a new kind of cunning man, not always welcome, not always quite as clever as his fingers and picks would have him believe.

Stories and poems about leaving, and being left behind; or that take an unexpected turn, going completely off piste. From authors featured at The Story Sessions, the South London live literature evening. Stories from Emily Bullock, David Steward, Helen Morris, Nic Ridley, Barbara Renel, Carolyn Eden, Cherry Potts, VG Lee, Liam Hogan, Becky Ros, Joan Taylor-Rowan, David Mathews, Sarah Lawson, Oscar Windsor-Smith and Zoe Brigley. Poems from Kate Foley, Gloria Sanders, Nancy Charley, Joy Howard, Math Jones and Elinor Brooks.

Ness Owen lives on Ynys Môn off the North Wales coast. This is her first collection, and is partly bilingual. The poems journey widely from family and motherhood, to politics, place and belonging: an underlying connection to the earth of Ness' home, that feeds a longing/desire/determination to write in the Mamiaith (Mothertongue) that she speaks, but did not learn to write fluently. The interplay of languages and the shifts of meaning from one to the other feed the musicality of the poems.Most of the poems were written in English, five have been additionally translated into Welsh (with help from Sian Northey) one was written in Welsh and translated into English by Ness.

Story Cities explore ways in which stories respond to, reflect and re-imagine the city. Explore new short fictions in multiple genres that address the city. A guide book to the fictional city, all cities, any city: its markets, squares, cafés, hotels, parks, stations and ports; the main streets, side streets, back alleys dead ends and the crossroads. Never identified, the city has a voice of its own.Includes work from writers in Australia, Eire, Indonesia,Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, USA, and right across the UKAnnabel Banks, Melaina Barnes, Laura Besley, Maja Bodenstein, Jayne Buxton, Sarah-Clare Conlon, Rosamund Davies, Roland Denning, Liam Hogan, Cath Holland, Belinda Huang, Catherine Jones, Aisling Keogh, Jess Kilby, Jasmin Kirkbride, Stuart Larner, Wes Lee, Emma Lee, Cathy Lennon, Ash Lim, C.A. Limina, Máire Malone, David Mathews, Nicholas McGaughey, Rachael McGill, Dave Murray, Pedro Basso Neves, Alexandra Penland, Cherry Potts, Matthew Pountney, Arna Radovich, Kam Rehal, Jane Roberts, Reshma Ruia, Jesse Sensibar, Shamini Sriskandarajah , Miriam Sorrentino, Stuart Larner, Patty Tomsky, Evleen Towey, Nic Vine, Rob Walton, Steven Wingate,

There is a double meaning in the title to this debut collection from Jane Aldous – Jinn was her family nickname, and writing poetry feels like letting out her wild, mischievous spirit.For Jane, poetry is all about listening, and she invites us to listen to the imagined worlds of hunter-gatherers, star-gazers, mythical beings, wild creatures, the living and the dead, and the real world of a gay woman growing up in the 70s.

Story Cities explore ways in which stories respond to, reflect and re-imagine the city. Explore new short fictions in multiple genres that address the city. A guide book to the fictional city, all cities, any city: its markets, squares, cafés, hotels, parks, stations and ports; the main streets, side streets, back alleys dead ends and the crossroads. Never identified, the city has a voice of its own.Includes work from writers in Australia, Eire, Indonesia,Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, USA, and right across the UKAnnabel Banks, Melaina Barnes, Laura Besley, Maja Bodenstein, Jayne Buxton, Sarah-Clare Conlon, Rosamund Davies, Roland Denning, Liam Hogan, Cath Holland, Belinda Huang, Catherine Jones, Aisling Keogh, Jess Kilby, Jasmin Kirkbride, Stuart Larner, Wes Lee, Emma Lee, Cathy Lennon, Ash Lim, C.A. Limina, Máire Malone, David Mathews, Nicholas McGaughey, Rachael McGill, Dave Murray, Pedro Basso Neves, Alexandra Penland, Cherry Potts, Matthew Pountney, Arna Radovich, Kam Rehal, Jane Roberts, Reshma Ruia, Jesse Sensibar, Shamini Sriskandarajah , Miriam Sorrentino, Stuart Larner, Patty Tomsky, Evleen Towey, Nic Vine, Rob Walton, Steven Wingate,

Poems informed by and immersed in politics. Everything has significance beyond the surface. Beautiful, hair-raising words and form. Emma Lee's The Significance of a Dress moves from Refugee camps in northern Iraq via beaches in Greece and Northern France to dark streets in London and elsewhere, and asks questions about where to find hope, and how to overcome adversity. 'A wedding is a party, a welcome, a sign of hope. The dresses sparkle with sun-reflected diamanté but the gravel paths of the camp leave the hems stained.'

Winner of the Holyer An Gof YA award 2022 and the 2022 Ann Trevenen Jenkin CupZed and her family move unwillingly form London to Cornwall to support her mother's mental health. Gradually the family falls apart and it is only when Zed realises the local Cormorants have something to do with the disasters that consume them, and that they are attempting to right an ancient wrong, that she and her sister Amy start working together to find a solution and call a truce. A really haunting story – in more ways than one. I shall often think of those riverbanks, the birds, the town and the relationship between man and nature – it’s a clever weaving of history with contemporary issues. A compelling story, full of mystery and enchantment, and readers will love it, the perfect book to get lost in on a hot summer’s day. Sophia Bennett

Frustrated by working under lockdown and worried that the 2020 festival might not happen, Arachne Press decided to continue as though everything would be alright, and asked writers to something that responded or reacted to or was inspired by a sixteenth century poem that editor Cherry Potts has always found comforting in a crisis: Robert Southwell's Tymes Goe by Turnes; or that responded or reacted to or was inspired by some concept in it. The poem observes the ebb and flow of fortune, nothing stays bad for ever, nor anything good - so get on with it while you can. And they have. Oh, they have. This isn't exactly a response to Covid-19, but there's an echo there - in Katie Margaret Hall's epic train journey, New Orleans To Vancouver, and Jackie Taylor's Rewilding; but there is also concern for the environment, and relationships and lives in need of nourishment they are finding hard to find. As with Southwell's poem there is a fine balance between dread and hope. stories and poems from:Brooke StanickiC.L. HearndenClaire BookerElinor BrooksJackie TaylorJane AldousJane McLaughlinJulian BishopKaren AnkersKatie HallKeely O'ShaughnessyKelly DavisLaila SumptonLinda McMullenLynn WhiteMargaret CromptonNeil LawrencePatience MackarnessPippa GladhillS. B. MerrowSean Carney