Focus Magazines The local magazines for Abergavenny, Crickhowell, Brecon & Talgarth – Events, News and Advertising

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Running Wild

Highly Commended Over 18s Category By Linda Vickers   Bare legs, waxed and Bali-brown, pound the path. The ruined roundabout and forgotten flowerbeds whizz by unnoticed. The sky is darkling. Mara vaults the steps to the dilapidated bandstand. “Damn.” She clutches a stitch. “Jay!” Mara paces, panting into the hands-free. “I took a wrong turn. […]

Black Bin-bag

Highly Commended Over 18s Category By Louisa Adjoa Parker   In the end, their daughter, their girl, was nothing more than a bag of bones; a skull and pelvis, picked clean. Bones like bleached driftwood. They wanted to tip the black bin-bag she’d been found in upside down, shake out every last splinter of bone. […]

How To Make Them Like You

Highly Commended Over 18s Category By Josephine Corcoran   Make it look as though you are rubbing dirt from your forehead, from your heart, from one shoulder, then the other shoulder. Clasp your hands together in a way that makes them believe you are anticipating happiness. Always wear an electronic device. Don’t move your lips; […]

It Felt Like Sleeping

Highly Commended Over 18s Category By Jonathan Margetts A bottle of vodka in an open-air playground at night; bark-based pine surfacing; a rusted blue slide; a bin filled with crisp packets; ready salted, smoky bacon. Her breath was a combination of Mayfair cigarettes, Smirnoff and strawberry lip balm. We played with extra-safe Durex, and we […]

Touched

Highly Commended Over 18s Category By Natalie Bowers Kathy had only popped round to ask the deaf old dear to turn down her telly. “Jason’s on nights you see,” she said as she followed Mrs Carpenter along the hallway. “Never you mind about that, sweetie.” Mrs Carpenter shuffled along, gnarled fingers kneading the length of […]

The Sofa

Winner Over 18s Category By Barbara Weeks The sofa – long past its first flush of youth – sat exposed and embarrassed on the Trenton Cross roundabout. Dumped without ceremony, it was like some faded Hollywood starlet, once beautiful and feted, now aged and unloved. As I passed every morning on my way to work […]

Please support our local businesses