“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” Malcolm X

To have a better tomorrow, we must educate our children.   It’s all too easy to leave it to chance so that children work it out for themselves without guidance.  Without guidance we run the risk of things getting worse, not better. Children don’t have to work it out for themselves.

-o0o-

The thing I remember most about David Senior was his shoes – his shoes were ripped apart by his feet.  They were cheap shoes, I expect, and David’s family was doubtless much like the rest of us: stony broke so that once the shoes were torn, there’d be no money for new ones until the following September, at the start of the school year.  For the whole year then, David had the indignity of walking about with his feet exposed…

I finished it yesterday…

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Fell Whispers on the Wind

     In which Globular Van der Graff, (Glob), Makepeace Terranova (Make), Byzantine Du Lac (Byz), Eponymous Tringthicky (Mous), curmudgeonly old Neopol Stranglethigh (Neo) and Bejuss, the one eyed lisping raven with the twisted beak, encounter a frightening beast from the past.

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     As the last days of summer gave way to the cool windy days of autumn, Mica’s wife, the fair Agnitha, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who she named Ylesse after her grandmother. In the first three months of little Ylesse’s life, the goblin brothers where invited by Agnitha and Mica to be her guardians. Needless to say they took their duties to ensure her safety and happiness very seriously, especially grumpy old Neo, who she immediately crawled to when Mica and Agnitha brought her to visit them in their oak tree home for the first…

Bejuss’ great grand-nephew Braak

As I’m rewriting my fantasy anthology Goblin Tales, I thought I’d let you read about when I introduced my favourite character of them all – a one eyed lisping raven with a twisted beak. I couldn’t get a picture of him as he’s extremely shy. So the one of Braak will have to suffice.

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A Spell is Cast

     In which Globular Van der Graff, (Glob), Makepeace Terranova (Make), Byzantine Du Lac (Byz), Eponymous Tringthicky (Mous) and curmudgeonly old Neopol Stranglethigh (Neo), assisted by worthy allies, do battle to save their humin friend Mica and his entire village from the effects of powerful black magic.

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     In the midst of a violent stormy night a mighty lightning bolt hit the ancient oak tree where Glob and his brothers lived, immediately followed by an ear-splitting clap of thunder, throwing them all into a state of…

Independence
is a gift
reserved for the very few

And freedom
is a myth
for the masses

Your differences
make you a target
a false name
an object

But you swim
against currents
and against tides

Seeking a goddess
only you sense
free to be solitary

Living in false freedom
until your skin
your shape
your love
and your sex
are no longer a weapon
to crush your spirit

Until America
means freedom
for everyone of her children ~ Caroline A. Slee

In every fantasy story there is always good and evil. In my anthology Globular Van der Graff’s Goblin Tales, one of the good guys is the ancient white wizard Morweth. To give you a flavour of him, here is a speech he delivers right at the beginning of part two of ‘Beware on Crellen’s Mine’.

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Morweth ended a heated argument over what they would do with the black wizard Crellen when they finally caught up with him. He knew only too well that this was the time for wisdom, magic and cunning not simple blind angry revenge. “No, no, no, Crellen must not die! Goblindom exists because it is in total equilibrium, unlike the world beyond our magic border. Life and death, growth and decay, summer and winter, and in magic’s case, good and evil, all contribute to keeping us hidden from prying eyes. Should any of these elements…