Esther Chilton

If you’d like to be included in this slot, please get in touch: estherchilton@gmail.com. Poems can be up to 60 lines and prose 2000 words. If you’d like to add a short bio and photo, then great. All I ask is that there’s nothing offensive.

This week’s guest writer is a member of my Writers Bureau’s writing club. Liz Mackenzie produces some excellent work and our group were especially taken with a children’s story she wrote. So it’s no surprise that she’s gone on to write a book for children. It’s a middle grade novel which is due out next week!

Here is the blurb for The Clocker:

Nev’s life stinks. His mother left, and he lives with his Dad, who is a bit weird. The school bully, Kez, is making his life a misery.

The best things in Nev’s life are his five hens, especially his favourite, The Clocker. He can talk to her, and she understands.

After struggling to find something to write for a poetry competition, Nev decides on a poem about The Clocker. He is chosen to represent his school and read his poem at the Regional Schools’ Poetry Festival.

On the downside, the poem ramps up the bullying. Will Nev ever gain the confidence to stand up to Kez?

Extract

Kez Parsons + meeting him alone = trouble (and most likely a serious battering).

It was no use stepping one way and then the other. There’s no way of getting round Kez Parsons. He’s a solid wall of evil.

“Hey, Kez,” I said, trying to sound calm. Inside, I was a mass of wobbling jelly.

He leaned towards me, his eyes piercing my brain. I could smell his stinking breath. What had he been eating? I tried not to be sick.

“Idiot,” he said, like that was a really clever thing to say.

My heart was slambanging around. It was like you could see it thrashing about through my shirt. I was sure you could have heard it twenty-four countries away.

I crossed my fingers in the utterly useless hope it would make Kez go away. Maybe he’d done enough bullying for one day. Some chance. It started to feel like the world was slowing down.

I hoped a huge Alsatian would appear out of nowhere and bite Kez on his bum. Maybe if it bit him hard enough, he wouldn’t be able to sit down for eight weeks and five days.

Instead, I saw his enormous fist zooming towards my face. His eyes were bulging out of his head. He was roaring like a lion. A very angry and vicious lion who wanted to kill me.

***

Photo credit: Liz Mackenzie – photo of Liz

Bio

Liz lives in Nottingham with her partner and their rescue cats, Isabella and Benjamin. She has adopted many cats, as well as hens and believes animals deserve a second chance. Liz has wanted to be a writer since she was eleven years old, when her English teacher gave the class a prompt for a story. It was about being one inch tall. She thinks that if you have a dream to be a writer, or something else, you should never give up. Liz is living proof of that as, at the age of sixty-seven, she is publishing her first children’s book.

She is retired and volunteers one morning a week at her local Children’s Air Ambulance charity shop. She likes serving customers and seeing how much children enjoy exploring the toys and books.

Liz loves living in Nottingham, where she moved in 2018. It is known as the rebel city because, throughout history, Nottingham has stood for justice. This is something that is important to Liz too.

Photo credit: Liz Mackenzie – Photo of Liz’s cats