In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts from the Jan / Feb 2016 competition, as well as those that came second and third. The prompts submitted can be found at the end of each story.In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts from the Jan / Feb 2016 competition, as well as those that came second and third. The prompts submitted can be found at the end of each story.In the first - the title - story, 'The Maestro', we meet Amontillado-swigging Joe 'The Bricklayer' Marsh who has been seeking revenge for the past ten years.The second, 'Jungfrau', is another revenge story and features Zurich-born Birgitta who, unlike Joe, has nothing to lose.Finally, 'Is it me?', introduces us to job-seeking Dubliner, Arthur, who turns his back on sales for a more interesting career.

‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2015 winter-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey. The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves.‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2015 winter-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey.The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves (some of whom have other books available here on Smashwords). They chose their own characters – the lead of which entitle each chapter – and plot.Morgen then collated the stories and made minor edits to turn each chapter into a cohesive novella before designing the cover and upload the finished package between weeks nine and ten of the course so all the contributing attendees left the course as published authors!We all hope that you enjoy reading this novella and that it feels seamless to you. We would love to know what you think and would also be very grateful if you left a review as an encouragement for others to read the novella.Thank you again for downloading this eBook – your support is much appreciated.

In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts from the Dec 2015 / Jan 2016 competition, as well as those that came second and third. The prompts submitted can be found at the end of each story.In December 2015, I started a free monthly competition challenging my blog visitors to provide me with prompts for me to choose my favourite and write their story in around 500 words. The three pieces published here are the winning prompts submitted from 16th December to 15th January, as well as those that came second and third in that month. The prompts supplied can be found at the end of each story.The winning story, 'A Handle at One End, a Spout at the Other' features Danny and Penny, and is about two friends, a grandmother's will, a silver teapot and an abandoned shopping trolley stuck in the sand, one wheel running for its life but destined to never go anywhere other than the scrapyard if Mickey O’Flanagan got hold of it.The second-placed story, 'Don't Cry, Don't Cry', is of a couple, Mara and Jaime, skiing late in the season but making a pitstop of a Café Allongé and petit pain au chocolate, their encounter with a French family, and Mara trying to keep her composure.'Sweeping the Coast', the third-placed story, features Hugh, a disillusioned deutanope (he suffered with red-green colourblindness) whose escape to the coast doesn't go according to plan... not that he had one.

‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2016 spring-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week evening class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey.The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves.‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2016 spring-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week evening class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey.The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves. They chose their own characters – the lead of which entitle each chapter – and plot.Morgen then collated the stories and made minor edits to turn each chapter into a cohesive novella before designing the cover and upload the finished package between the final two weeks of the course so all the contributing attendees left the course as published authors!We all hope that you enjoy reading this novella and that it feels seamless to you. We would love to know what you think and would also be very grateful if you left a review as an encouragement for others to read the novella.Thank you again for downloading this eBook – your support is much appreciated.