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There's no stopping the Beans!
We are all about spreading… stories that is – not COVID!
Omicron is out and about in the community so, we have decided to keep everyone safe by postponing our picnic until early 2022. Sad but hey, there’s no stopping the Beans! We’re bursting with ideas to keep our wonderful online writing community busy. So don’t put your computer or pens away just yet.
In December
Order your copies of the first edition of Spill the Beans Stories and Poems. They're great stocking fillers, so get in quick. Click the button to place your order.
We are working on our second book! Voting for your favourite stories from Challenge 6 starts 10 December, 2021. Take a challenge to have your stories or poems published.
Read new articles about our authors on our website.
Some ‘Beans’ couldn’t wait for the next challenge and have sent us Christmas stories. You can too. 400 words or less. Send to beanswrite21@gmail.com
Come volunteer with the ‘Beans’. Thanks to Jamie Kennedy our eBook is ready to go – but we need someone to help us to upload to Amazon. Is that you? If so contact us at spillthebeans321@gmail.com
Happy writing
Julie
Beans Book Available now!
Deb, Harvey, Cindy, Jane, Roger and Julie celebrate the publication of the The Spill the Beans Book of Stories and Poems
Helen Lyne performance poet and writer.
Come meet Helen @ Manly Dam
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Helen draws inspiration from her experiences as a traveller, teacher, movie extra and resident of Reims in the Champagne region of France, Winnipeg on the Canadian prairies and Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
See more about Helen at: www.helenlyne.com.au or come and meet her at the Manly Dam Picnic 1.00pm, 12 December, Area 1, Table 2
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
In June 2021, Ginninderra Press published a collection of her short stories entitled
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life.
These are a few of the thirty-one stories. A dying woman is taken surfing by her carer. A young Australian traveller receives a marriage proposal at an oasis in Algeria. A businessman interviews a job-seeker who bullied him when they were at school. A student inspires a teacher to leave her abusive husband. A grandmother-to-be rejoices in her first one-night stand. Helen’s protagonists range in age from adolescence to atrophy. With ingenuity, resilience and bloody-mindedness they kick over the rock of life’s disappointments and discover freedom, love, laughter and well-satisfied lust.
Helen the performer
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Helen the performer
Helen also presents satirical and self-send-up poetry at open mic nights in cafes, pubs and book shops.
The monthly Bonfire open mic at Desire Books and Records in Manly is a great place to find beginning and experienced poets, story tellers and musicians. (Tone-deaf Helen is not a musician!)
Caterina, her fantom feline muse, ghost-writes her performance poems. She wrote “A Shimmy in the Shower in Chinon” for Helen to perform after their last trip to France.
Here is the first verse.
My hotel in Chinon is cheap.
No lift and the staircase is steep.
The shower’s so little
a guest there should whittle
the fat from her stomach and thighs
before she steps in, otherwise,
she’ll look like a dope
when she drops the soap
and that’s just what happened to me
and left me with no dignity
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