Abctales

Infobox Website
name = ABCTales
location = London, United Kingdom
type = Writers Website
registration = Optional
owner = Burgeon Creative Ideas
author = John Bird MBE and Tony Cook

Abctales.com is a British writers website first established in December 2000. It originated as an idea of "The Big Issue" founder John Bird and was started by Tony Cook (co-founder of "Red Pepper Magazine" and "Booktribes", a social network devoted to readers, with the goal of encouraging reading and allowing members to discover and review new books. [http://www.booktribes.com] ) and Gordon Roddick, co-founder of "The Body Shop". Tony Cook is CEO to this day.

Aims

The site is aimed at those who wish to write and get their work out in the publicdomain. Its social agenda is to put people's own writing on the web andallow others to read and then comment upon it. ABCtales has been through a number of incarnations. Its forums have alwaysbeen popular and esoteric and the quality of writing on the site varieswidely from user to user.

Authors

Three major novels started life on ABCtales.

* Joe Dunthorne's 'Submarine' (reviewed in The Guardian [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/17/fiction.reviews1] ] ), published by Hamish Hamilton
* Drew Gummerson's 'Me and Mickie James' (reviewed in The Guardian [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/02/fiction.roundupreviews2] ] ) published by Jonathan Cape
* Andreas Koumi's 'The Cypriot', published by Black Spring Press.

Other ABCtales authors include:

* Roger Morris ('Taking Comfort' Macmillan New Writing, 'A Gentle Axe' and 'A Vengeful Longing' Faber and Faber.)
* Tara Hanks ('The Mmm Girl; Marilyn Monroe, by herself'. Published by The UKA Press, November 2007)
* John Thomson ('Glasgow Kisses.')
* Jon Stone ('I'll Show you Tyrants')
* Julian Simpson ('Wigan is Wonderful'. Published by UKA Press, March 2007)
* Tom Saunders ('Brother, What Strange Place is This?')
* Susan Simpson ('Lizards Leap', published by UKA Press June 2005) ('Keepers of the Quantum' (as Kat Black. Published by iUniverse, 2003) ('Better the Devil you Know', published by Best Books Online May 2003, and others).

Courses and Social Ventures

ABCtales has a charity attached, the ABCtales Foundation, which runsTaleCatching courses whereby mentors are trained and help sociallyexcluded people to tell their stories and reconnect with society. ABCtalesis linked with the Social Venture Network Europe and Homeless organisation.

Writing

Writers can upload stories, poems, scripts, or blogs. Editors highlight the better writing, or writing that has improved dramatically, by awarding a cherry. ABC Tales has a lively discussion forum. Several writers have gone on to become published in print form. In 2001, AbcTales was named best Arts and Music Site at the yell.com awards [ http://www.yellgroup.com/espanol/media-pressreleases-2001-yellcomawardsceremony2001 ]

Background

In the early days of the site, 'tale-catching' [http://www.abctales.com/node/542625] was used as a way of recording stories from people who didn't write as a norm. Abctales members walked the streets speaking to taxi drivers, police officers, fire officers and so on, to get their stories. It still continues as of 2008. Abctales received Arts Council funding in 2004 for a tale catching project in Haringey. Emily Dubberley, author and journalist, was involved in the site in the early days, but left to pursue other interests, notably as co-founder of Cliterati Magazine [http://www.cliterati.co.uk] and creator of Burlesque Against Breast Cancer [http://burlesqueabc.com] , a charity campaign seeking to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Events

Abctales has held a number of poetry events, in London, Brighton, and Leicestershire, where Abctales members were given the opportunity of performing in public for the first time. These events have also attracted professional poets. The last gig was held in the summer of 2008 in Brighton.

References

External links

* [http://www.abctales.com] ABCtales
* [http://www.booktribes.com] Booktribes
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media/1565339.stm] BBC coverage of ABCtales launch