avatarLiam Ireland

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Rainbows In A Jar

A collection of my best short stories

Photograph by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Since joining Illumination I have written quite a wide variety of articles, short stories and poems. However, like my life in general, it all became a bit of a clutter. So I have finally decided to try to impose some sort of order, starting with a collection of nine short stories.

My first attempt at the short story form on Illumination began with a series of three short pieces for children centred around a character called Katie. I did have it in mind to develop the Katie series further, and I still might, but I decided in the end to put Katie on the back burner whilst I developed other ideas.

The fourth of the short stories presented here, 'A Life Of Heaven On Earth', was something of a prosaic soliloquy capturing an early morning joust with my lovely wife as she got ready to go out to work.

The final five short stories are examples of me developing the two themes of science fiction and the supernatural which are clearly evident in the Katie series. To be honest, I never set out to follow those two paths, or if I did I did so subconsciously. For me, it just happened that way, in no small part due to exceptional personal circumstances.

I do think that life really is quite mysterious and that deep within the zone of semi-transparent cloudiness that shrouds the mystery of life are the reasons why certain things happen.

Although the stories presented here are works of fiction, in each and every one of them are very strong traces of reality. And it is those traces of reality that were used as a kind of launchpad for my mind to go off on flights of fantasy. All of these short stories, in one way or another, are deeply rooted in my very own personal, all too often traumatic, history.

In one way, the writing of the stories was cathartic, in other ways it was nothing less than pure joy. What I have done is put those personal situations through a series of creative filters in the hope that what comes out at the end is something more palatable for both myself and for the reader. On that note, please feel free to dip in and take from the stories what you will, even if it's only the pleasure derived from observing my little plays on words.

Writing
Short Stories And Poems
Sci-Fi
Supernatural Jacket
Life Lessons
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