Kindle edition- 99cents                      Paperback edition – $5.99

The day is finally here! My anthology of poetry and short stories is now on Amazon in Kindle/eBook and paperback versions. I couldn’t be more thrilled! There’s a lot of my heart and soul poured into this little manuscript.

I’ve been writing since I was nine years old — starting with funny verse. Always a researcher, even at that young age (when you had to go to the library! Shock, horror) I was learning about rhyming couplets, sonnets, and limericks. You know, ‘there once was a…’ The vast majority of you will never have heard of the place I grew up in; it was Fareham, in Hampshire, England, and one of my very first poems was about this lovely place:

There was a young lady from Fareham,
Who ran around town, harem-scare-um.
The vicar and priest
Said, “Oh! What a beast!
She’ll pounce on the people and scare ’em!”

Well, not too bad for nine years old, right? And it shouldn’t be any big surprise to you all that I spent my pocket money on books, such as ‘Verse and Worse.’ I suppose the nice thing about being nine was that I didn’t much care if my writing wasn’t good… I so enjoyed the process! I went on to enter a couple of contests — back in those days you actually wrote things by hand and put your offering in an envelope and maiedl it… God, I love the internet! 😀 I won my very first camera that way – a super-spiffy Kodak Instamatic.

Tales from the Realm of the Green Elf is the first time I’ve published poetry in quite a lot of years, even though I’ve written hundreds, and there’s also a few short stories in it that I am quite proud of. I do so hope you’ll enjoy the read! At under 18,000 words you could read it all in one evening (for the princely sum of 99c), or you could savour each nugget one day at a time. Watch out for Stealing Shadows! What would happen to Wendy and the Boys if something happened to Pan?

Please, please leave a review if you like it, and tell me which poem or story you like the best.  Here follows a sneaky peak…

“My Own Story”

The house looks like it’s been bombed.

Photos of hope still adorn broken walls,

Betrayed smiles staring back at me.

The bricks and mortar of a life –

Thoughtlessly, callously, strewn –

And trust lies, shattered, on the bedroom floor.

 

If I stay here, I will end here;

If I have not already gone.

The air is poisoned, and there’s nothing to sustain me

But I stare through cracked and dirty windows

Looking for a sign,

And I see nothing.

NOTHING.

 

I remember back

So long ago

When I believed in magic

And I seek my trusty wand

In desperation.

Poking out from beneath someone else’s dream.

It calls to me,

But it’s broken into two pieces

From the battle.

I hold them in my hands and lift them high.

 

WHAT IS MAGIC FOR, IF NOT FOR THIS?

 

I grasp one piece of wand and sketch a portal

On one unbroken stretch of wall

And then I draw a handle

Then a lock

And finally,

I draw myself a key.

 

I TURN THE KEY…

 

There is nothing on the outside of the portal,

Like walking into a whiteout.

And so, I crawl

And draw myself a path.

A path AWAY

A path TOWARDS

On my knees…

 

I WRITE MY OWN STORY NOW…

 

With love from Wendy Anne Darling, aka ‘The Green Elf.”