Matt Kendrick

I know I've been moaning a lot about illness lately. It's just that the illness has been a lot lately. Anyway, I did what any good writer should do and wrote about forks and knives and potato mashers and spoons: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/the-cutlery-...

Sometimes all you can do to get yourself through the day is to write an essay about cutlery 😂 (also doing a watercolour of a talking abacus 😂 - these are definitely my two go-tos for when everything's in survival mode 🙃)

The winners of this (I accidentally picked 2 names 😂) are @m-ixedbag.bsky.social & @madeleinepoet.bsky.social - please send me a DM with your email address and which date you'd like 😀 Anyone else who'd like to come and play, sign-up details here: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/live-worksho...

Who'd like to be part of the Lightbulb Collective or have a virtual lunch, tea or breakfast with me? Find out about a couple of free and hopefully wonderful things from me in my latest newsletter: prattlefogandgravelrap.substack.com/p/free-thing...

A reminder that if you want your name in the hat for a free place at my upcoming workshops, you need to give me a wave below before lunchtime (BST) tomorrow!

Want a bit of this for your own writing? I'm now offering free informal mentoring chats over some virtual lunch, breakfast or tea 😀 www.mattkendrick.co.uk/free-lunch-s...

I mentioned the other day how much I enjoyed this. Now, I've got 3 more wonderful virtual dates to look forward to. Feeling very grateful for this community. And I want MORE!! Come have virtual "lunch" with me & pick my editing/mentoring brain for FREE... www.mattkendrick.co.uk/free-lunch-s...

"Daddy was gone all at once, but now Mama feels thinner than smoke, vanishing a little at a time. I ask what happened to him, but her words go scarce as mosquitos in a dry spell" Fab piece from @tracieadams.bsky.social (who makes me sound like such a tyrant 😂) full of tension and voice

For the evening / US crowd. Win a free spot. Also, if you're a fan of free things, I've popped two new things on my website to see if anyone notices... (one person has already, so I'm kind of committed now 😁) www.mattkendrick.co.uk

When I'm in a flare, I tend to look for a project I can chip away at so I feel I'm still achieving something. With this most recent flare, I picked "re-do website". Mostly this has been making me curse. Think it looks better though. Also, a couple of new things added... 😃🤩 www.mattkendrick.co.uk

It's International Dictionary Day today!!! Come on, what are your favourite words? Today I'm a pachyglossal (thick-tongued) nephophile (lover of clouds) who's fudgelling (pretending to work while actually doing nothing) and engaging in mataeology (worthless conversation)...

For various reasons, I'm pivoting away from my teaching work in 2027 so my upcoming Go With The Flow course will be the last chance to write with me for a while. Who'd like to come & explore anchors, bridges, stitches & threads with me in November? www.mattkendrick.co.uk/wbtl-go-with...

"My son turned six and all he wanted was a potato. Raw. Whole. When he opened his gift—a spud wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper—he drew a smiley face on it. Named it Ted." Wonderfully original piece from @rachelmhollis.bsky.social - so poignant and sweet

"In almost every way, though, this living Paul and Diane were the opposite of Brock’s lost loved ones" Wonderful use of juxtaposition in this micro from @woodardwriter.bsky.social in @fictivedream.bsky.social; a new angle on a familiar theme

"Inside a cavity of a crooked white birch, a bird’s black beads dart, sweeping the snowy landscape for predators" Love how this piece from @lizdebeerwriter.bsky.social makes such great use of sound - startling, evocative writing

"Well yeah of course this truck is going to cut you off and send you swerving swearing sweating, so you grip the steering wheel grit your teeth grind the gas pedal" Brilliant breathless prose from @timothycgoodwin.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/on-our-way-t...

"As Carla lines up the kids outside the new rental at the end of their three-state, 18-hour drive, she realizes that this time it’s Danny" @emilyrinkema.bsky.social always amazes me. So much story here in such a small space; the way this shifts through the gears: bendinggenres.com/no-looking-b...

"I sat on the lawn with the boys, in our jeans, our band t shirts, our heads shaved. I watched the girls on the steps. Watched them sit on each other’s laps.." Ooft - the sort of piece that makes you lean forward as you read. Great writing from @writesloud.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social

"The number 4 was a show-off. More limber than the others, she could move her lines in any direction like an acrobat." @claudiamonpere.bsky.social always finds such unique and fasincating ways into story. This is a gem; and what a shift in that ending! bendinggenres.com/number-sense...

"My toddler keeps running around, screaming about ghosts, how they’re upstairs, downstairs, everywhere: everything drifting out there in the darkness." Brilliant villanelle from @juscarts.com; love how the repeating elements keep shifting; how there's so much movement in that

Last (ish) call for this. Tomorrow night at 7pm BST or Saturday morning UK time (9am start) 👇 How writers handle time is something I often pick up on in my editing work and hopefully this session gives plenty of ideas for handling it in a stronger fashion

My #CraftArticle for October is on creating complex characters and making sure they aren't entirely "good", thinking about the roots of good and evil, good questions to make good characters do bad things, the inner battle etc: prattlefogandgravelrap.substack.com/p/the-comple...

"It is spring – that month that comes in like a lamb and takes its leave with a vicious swipe of its lion’s paw" A stunner from @fionamckay.bsky.social Love the language, the rhythms, the deep and resonant emotions beneath every word. Brilliant, brilliant writing.

"Shards of white gleam in the starlight. My teeth, crusted into the frozen roadside soil. Eyeteeth. The molar I chipped in middle school." Love how @mynachang.bsky.social plays around with time in this tense, beautifully written piece of flash. Wonderful writing.

"Hey Trixie, Meet us at the Fernwood Cemetery this Sunday- we’ll be passing through." Wonderful use of the epistolary from @rgvaughan.bsky.social

"The husbands crave sex. The babies crave feeding. The mothers crave sleep. They discuss these things with the facilitator in the New Mothers Group." The way this piece from @claudiamonpere.bsky.social moves through perspectives and time is so skilful and fascinating; wonderful flash

"you love sleeping on a roof so much more than sleeping under a roof—and you feel something move in your beard but it isn’t alarming" A tiny gem of a piece from @dawnsteffler.bsky.social; I love the whole feel of this; sparkling writing

"Long, dark hair in a black bikini. In one she’s topless, in another she’s with her cousin. In another she has a pug nose." Love the way this piece from @mamiewilloughby.bsky.social shifts into future speculation in the final third.

"she was taken not to a hospital, but to a church. there: the priest adorned her face in holy water & prayer" Ooft - the weight of emotion in this powerful micro from @jjpena.bsky.social

"I don’t water her. She drinks up all the whiskey from my blood. She lays into me about hydration, about exercise. She says she can feel the state of my lungs" Great use of extended metaphor in this from @allisonfieldbell.bsky.social; such a creatively rich piece of flash