Over the past three years, I have been posting a Writer Showcase once a month, each focusing on a specific writer. I have finished doing this now, for the time being at least, but I am inviting everyone who was showcased to write an update on their writing-related activities since they were showcased. I intend topublish three or four of these updates each month.
I'm starting with four of my earliest showcased writers: Ron Hardwick, L.N.Hunter, Jane Langan and Ruth Loten. I've arranged them in alphabetical order according to surname, for fairness - there is no rank order or anything like that. Writers were invited to write what they wanted, in their own words, and could include a short extract from any recent work. I also encouraged them to include a writing prompt or tip.
*****
Ron Hardwick
1 February 2026
"Louise has kindly
asked me to pen an update covering certain aspects of my writing since she
showcased me back in 2023. Well, I’m still writing, and, if you judge quantity
over quality, I’m more prolific than ever. I’ve just written my 360th
short story and I endeavour to write one a week. I’ve no interest in writing a
novel, because I may die before I finish it, but I love writing short fiction.
I’m entering fewer competitions these
days, because the rejection ratio makes the effort unrewarding, but I have had
modest success in some areas. Pure Slush,
an Australian e-zine, has to date published eight of my short stories in
consecutive editions. Write Time, the
over 60s magazine for the terminally bewildered, has last month published one
of my stories in its fourth anthology, having published a previous one in its
second.
The item that has given me the greatest
satisfaction since the showcase was with regard to an international competition
called ‘The Face Project.’ The
organisers published the photographs of 28 faces on their website and you had
to write a 1,000-word piece of flash fiction about one or more of them. I wrote
one for each of the 28 faces and my number 19, which I entitled ‘The Artist,’
was successful. When you think there were many hundreds of entries from all
over the world, it wasn’t a bad effort.
The 20/20 Club is of vital importance to
me and I engage with it at every opportunity, both in terms of submitting work
for review each cycle, and reviewing other narratives, as well as entering all
competitions. I’ve had some success with 20/20 Club competitions, too, and the cyclical
reviews are so important for developing my writing.
I still concentrate on writing humorous
stories. Not for me the angst and disapprobation of much short fiction I read
or listen to nowadays. If any of my stories make me laugh when I re-read them,
then I deem them a success.
Here’s a brief extract from one of my recent stories that sort of illustrates my current ‘style.’ My protagonist, the misanthropic Arthur Bulstrode is attending a mindfulness course by mistake, when he is supposed to be next door at an accountancy course.
Arthur moved his seat. He was just biting
into his second bacon roll when he became aware of a woman about his own age
hovering over him.
‘Do
you mind if I sit here?’ she said.
‘Suit
yourself. It’s a free country. At least it was the last time I looked.’
The
woman sat down. Arthur recognised her from the mindfulness course.
‘You’re
Arthur, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m
Beatrice. My friends call me Bea.’
‘I
don’t have any friends to call me anything,’ said Arthur.
‘What
nonsense. A well-presented man like you? You must have a wide circle of
friends.’
‘Just
Zorro.’
‘Zorro?’
‘My
cat.’
Beatrice
seemed to doubt whether Arthur was being entirely serious. She changed tack.
‘Arthur,
what do you hope you achieve from this course?’
Arthur
considered for a moment. He decided to have some fun with this earnest,
bespectacled woman with her freckled, pleasant, open face, hippy clothes and
golden Alice band in her ginger hair.
‘Well,
Beatrice, when I walk, I stroll. When I eat, I chew. That’s the sort of
cutting-edge mindfulness thinking I’m going to gain from Joanna on her magical
mystery tour.’
‘Oh,
Arthur, can I call you Art?’
‘No.’
‘Pity,
such a creative name. Arthur, that’s fascinating. Such unusual metaphors, but I
see what you’re driving at. Like Eckhard Tollé said: “Wherever you are, be there totally.” That’s your point, isn’t it?’
‘That’s
one assumption. Another might be that I’m talking bollocks.’
‘Oh,
Arthur, such a dry sense of humour. I can see that behind your sarcasm, you’re
embracing Joanna’s techniques with gusto. Do you know why I’m here?’
‘You’re
a felon and this is part of your community service?’
I want to continue writing, even if only
for a hobby. My attempt at self-publishing several volumes of my short fiction
was disastrous, so I won’t be doing that again.
The pleasure I get from writing is
difficult to describe, but it keeps me motivated through the long retirement
years.
I have one piece of advice which might
help other writers. I’ve started using Microsoft One Note for
freewriting before each story. It’s better than writing longhand. You stick
random textual ideas into One Note and from these emerge other ideas and
gradually a theme and a structure emerges. You build up a sort of flow-chart,
which you can then save as a pdf file and paste it into the blank pages of the
story you are about to write. It then becomes a permanent reference point for
your narrative.
Finally, I want to thank Louise for giving
me the opportunity to update my portfolio and to advise all of us who write to
keep on writing – don’t forget - fame is just around the corner."
*****
L.N.Hunter
"I’ve been writing and submitting short stories wherever I can, and am getting very close to 100 publications (out of over 800 submissions). Alas, my intentions for more novels have somewhat fallen by the wayside, partly because it’s difficult to build up enthusiasm for putting in all the work for longform writing when I can get a quick, and admittedly smaller, dopamine hit from short work. I’ve also recently discovered ‘modern board-gaming’ and am spending far too much time playing the excellent Ark Nova (among other games) when I should be writing. Still, should anyone want to give The Feather and the Lamp a nice review on Amazon, I might regain my enthusiasm for novel writing!
Rather than include some writing here, I’d like to point readers at my three most recent publications, all audio. I think audiobooks and story podcasts are great, and find it incredibly satisfying to hear someone do a good job of reading something I wrote.
- The Search on the Kaidankai podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-search-by-ln-hunter-a-sci-fi-horror-story-about-ai-humanity-and-the-unknown--71182681
- See No Evil on the Creepy Corner podcast: https://7e88a057-299b-4574-9e6b-ec593e75eb99.libsyn.com/see-no-evil
- Fine Dining on the No Sleep podcast: https://www.thenosleeppodcast.com/episodes/s23/23x15
It does so happen these are all horror stories, so might not be to everyone’s tastes, but the podcasts are all fantastic, and it’s worth checking out a few episodes. Interestingly, The Search was one of my earliest bits of published writing, having appeared in Matt Greenwell’s Machine way back in 2019, a book that had its beginnings within an OU creative writing group.
Not a writing challenge, but a submissions one. No matter how difficult it might feel, get out there and submit your work—let other people see it. It’s even better if someone’ll pay you for it, but don’t expect to get rich. Yes, rejections hurt, at least in the beginning, but that’s just part of the business, and you will definitely get used to it. Besides, most rejections are more about the pieces suitability for the publication, not about the quality of your writing. One note, though - do ensure you make the story as good as you can before submitting: use spelling and grammar checking tools, and do let someone else critique or at least proofread it.
Scan the Submission Grinder (https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/) for potential outlets, or if you’re into SFF/Horror, places like HorrorTree (https://horrortree.com/); and there are various genre-specific submissions groups on Facebook.
If anyone wants to find out more or get in touch, visit https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter or https://www.facebook.com/L.N.Hunter.writer/. "
*****
Jane Langan
“Since my Writer Showcase, I have been writing my trilogy of dark fantasy books, inspired by Gaelic mythology. The series is called The Queen of Conbairn. The first two books, The Impossible Queen and The Queen's Crucible (Links below), are in the world, and the first draft of the third is nearly complete and due out this year. I have been travelling back and forth to Ireland for the last thirty years, as my husband's parents are from there, but I have learned more in the last two years about the mythology than I ever did before. It's fascinating. So, lots of research, which has been great fun.
https://mybook.to/TheQueensCrucible
https://mybook.to/TheImpossibleQueen
Here are the first five hundred words of my novel, The Impossible
Queen.
Áed
I’m chilled to the bone, lying at her feet, bleeding. She’s holding a fancy-ass dagger with red gems along the handle, picking at her pointy nails with the sharp end. The Black Throne looks uncomfortable, yet she slouches in it like it’s the most comfortable chair in the world. Her back is against one arm, slender leather-clad legs crossed and slung over the other. Long, wavy black hair, the colour of raven's wings, cascades down her back.
We have been like this for a while. Enough time for me to view the Ogham symbols carved into the massive carved lion's feet of the burnt wood chair, famous for surviving the fire during the Cruel Massacre. More than enough time for me to see the images above her head of human knights killing my kind. Fuck her. Shifting, I grunt, shifting to a slightly less painful position as the woman above me sighs. Full lips form into a pout. Well, sorry to disturb your manicure. Maybe I wouldn’t be so noisy if my arm weren't dislocated at the shoulder. Or if I didn’t have two, no, three, broken fingers and several broken ribs. Or my normally very nice nose wasn’t broken, and one of my eyes wasn’t sealed shut, because of your friendly torturer's fists. What I wouldn’t give for my magic right now. Fucking humans.
The sound of heavy feet draws my attention away from the throne. Ah, it’s my favourite torturer. Skinny human number one. Probably has a miniature dick. Probably shouldn’t have suggested that, as he held a hammer to my fingers. He’s very close to the pretty queen. Shut up, brain, not pretty. Evil queen. That’s right. Very, very, evil queen. He likes her. The smell of his arousal wafts in the air, even through my disjointed nose, ugh. As if. She’s smiling at him. By all the gods, I wish I could cover my nose. The stench coming off him is going to make me throw up. Concentrate, prisoner… break… keep going… Prince… kill… ears… Shit. He’s staring at me, and so is she.
She moves to a sitting position in one fluid movement. Clicking her fingers, she says, ‘Someone loosen its chains, I want to see it standing up.’
Boots hit the floor running, echoing through the large, dark hall. A couple of burly soldiers loosen my shackles slightly so I can stand. Although there’s no way I’ll be running anywhere. The manacles keep my ankles and wrists bound close together, forcing a hunched shuffle. There’s an iron collar around my neck and a chain running from my neck to both my wrist and ankle restraints. Nope. Going nowhere fast. Whatever you say about humans, their ironworking skills are second to none. Fair play. Ah, the evil queen is getting off her throne.
WRITING ADVICE:
My best writing advice - Treat writing like any job. Sit at your
desk and write something - anything - and hopefully something will emerge. A
nugget could become a gold mine.”
*****
"Since being featured on the Showcase in March 2023, my writing life has been extraordinarily busy. At that time, as well as being in various anthologies, I had published two novels for adults and one for children, as well as a short story collection. The current total (as of February 2026) stands at four novels for adults, two for children, a short story collection, two short story/poetry collections and four picture books. I have also had my work used as part of an art installation which is fixed to the outer wall of Brightlingsea Lido and tells its story through the eyes of a local resident. The Brightlingsea Literary Festival, which I co-founded is also still going strong and 2026 is its fourth year of running.
My historical fiction trilogy is now complete, and I am currently working on two spin-off series of cosy crime and romance novels set in the same universe. My trilogy for children is also complete – though the third book is not yet published. However, my eldest son is now requesting a spin-off series from that as well, so time will tell whether I walk away from The Courts altogether! There is however, another children’s series in the pipeline, hopefully with an accompanying picture book.
Outside of series planning, I have another standalone novel which should be ready for publication in February 2027 and two more in the planning stages, so I have plenty of writing to keep me occupied over the next few years and as my youngest is growing up rapidly, I’m finding I have a bit more time to write than in previous years, so I’m hoping the process will speed up somewhat!
The biggest change has, I think, been in our publishing company, Castle Priory Press. When Jane and I started it, our initial thought was that it would make our own work look professional, even if it did nothing else. However, we were delighted when people started bringing their books to us and I am so proud of what we’ve achieved over the last three years. Not only have we published several of our own pieces, but we have also published books by a number of other authors, including some who have come to us after previously being traditionally published. Our most recent step forward is to investigate the possibility of offering traditional publishing contracts alongside our hybrid model – for us, this is huge. It’s something we always said we wanted to do in the future, but as these things often do, it’s come much sooner than we anticipated. As a company, we are also working in partnership with Brightlingsea Literary Festival and Brightlingsea Gamers’ Guild, to run a CIC called Pens and Dragons. Based in Brightlingsea, it’s a Centre for Storytelling, and runs book groups and writing groups alongside role-playing games, art workshops and community groups. In practical terms for us, it means that all our authors currently have a guaranteed physical space in which to sell their books. It’s still only small, but this was another idea that was meant to be two years in the planning and overtook us a little bit. The initial text messages were exchanged 20th January 2025 and we opened our doors 2nd April 2025!
Long-Term Goals
I have book releases scheduled up to summer 2027, so in some senses my long-term goals are more of the same. However, I have lots of writing to do as well and the main goal is, I think, to make time to do more book events and to continue expanding Castle Priory Press.
Writing Challenge
This isn’t just for other writers – I have set myself the same goal for the next few years. Each month take a photo and use it as a prompt for a poem and a short story. The story could either expand on the ‘story’ within the poem, or could be a completely different idea taken from the same visual source."
Just One
1415.
Amongst so many, what is one more?
A statistic.
The loss that made a country ask,
Could it still rule the waves?
In the face of such tragedy,
what right have I to mourn?
The nation lost its figurehead:
46,680 tonnes of pride and majesty.
Compared to this, what was my eleven stones of loss?
A drop in the ocean,
but a drop whose ripples spread far and wide.
son, brother, friend
a soft smile
a gentle word
a loving touch
a hole in my heart the size of the sea
which stopped his
a sister bereft
a mother prostrate
a grief too great to bear
reaching forward through the years.
National tragedy
forever remembered
Hood, a name of world-renown
but its beating heart remains largely anonymous
little more than a number,
a list on a website,
a memorial,
dwarfing its constituent parts,
for what is one
in 1415?
But he was my one. "
*****
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