West Lothian Writers have celebrated Halloween with an annual writing challenge since 2013. This collection is just a few of the spine tingling, creepy or down right silly, short stories and poems our members have crafted for the holiday. Read on, if you dare.

Waverley is a small cat with a big miaow and he lives with Mr and MrsTurner and their son Jonathan at number 10, Marten's Drive.Waverley likes the house at number 10, Marten's Drive because it haslots of good places to sleep and a back garden that seems to go onforever. Beyond the wooden fence at the bottom of the garden there isa children's playground, green fields, and then the woods. All daylong Waverley snoozes in the sunny spots around the ho...

It looked bleak and predictable for little Keelen Mailman: an alcoholic mother, absent father, the horrors of regular sexual and physical assault and the casual racism of a small outback town in the sixties. But somehow, despite the pain and deprivation, the lost education, she managed to absorb her mother's lessons: her Bidjara language and culture, her obligations to Country, and her loyalty to her family.So it was no surprise to some that a girl who could hide for a year in her ...

It’s 1967. The world is rocking, and Neil is growing up fast.I have this annoying problem that gives me a lot of trouble: a conscience.Neil Bridges attends a Catholic boys’ school in which teachers rule with iron fists and thick leather straps. Some crumble under the pressure but Neil toughs it out, just as his Vietnam-bound older brother has done before him. He has to be a man, after all. But at sixteen, how can he be sure of himself when he’s not...

From the creator of viral Tiktok sensation, Mammy Banter, comes a hilarious warts-and-all novel about modern motherhood – and how having it all sometimes isn’t what you think it might be.She used to want it all.Now she just wants a nap.Tara Gallagher is knackered. She used to dream of being Beyoncé but suddenly she’s thirty-six – with three kids, a loving husband, a very boring job – and instead of headlinin...

Humour, gender, sexuality, sensuality, identity, racism, cultural difference: when do any of these things ever come together to equal poetry? When Jackie Kay's part of the equation. Darling brings together into a vibrant new book many favourite poems from her four Bloodaxe collections, "The Adoption Papers", "Other Lovers", "Off Colour" and "Life Mask", as well as featuring new work, some previously uncollected poems, and some lively poetry for younger readers. Kay's poems draw on her own ...

"Fans of Griffiths, Gleitzman and Jennings will be thrilled to have this in their collection." Kids Book ReviewI'm Tom Weekly. You think you've made mistakes? I've made more.Every single word in this book is true. I do know someone with the worst case of nits in history. Stella Holling used chocolate to trick me into kissing her again. My sister, Tanya, truly is an evil genius. And as weird as it sounds, I really did ask Jack to help me mine my teeth for ...

A perennial favourite."Charming, wry, and believable." — Quill & QuireRiel Nason’s novel The Town That Drowned debuted in 2011 to glowing reviews and a flurry of awards, including a Commonwealth Book Prize. Nason’s evocation of the awkwardness of childhood, the thrill of first love, and the importance of having a place to call home made the novel an instant classic. Now in celebration of its 10th anniversary, The Town That Drowned ...

**A horror short story from #1 bestseller, Paul Finch. Part of the Dark Winter Tales series: unputdownable reads for cold winter nights…**Searching the stalls of Camden, 78-year-old Elsie becomes drawn towards a head on a top shelf – not a real head of course, but a good replica.As the stall holder takes ‘Old Bob’ off the shelf, Elsie realises that there is a body attached to the head and soon discovers that the mannequin was used to test the gallows each morning for execut...

‘A natural storyteller with a Sedaris-like eye for black humour. There are sharp splinters of comic relief … compelling and nuanced.” Edel Coffey, Irish TimesQuick-witted, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pubs all over Cork City, Noelle McCarthy's mother Carol rages against her life and everything she has lost. Soon after leaving college, in the early years of the millennium, Noelle flees. Even on the other side of the world, with fame...

Joseph Staines, an unemployed chef, has left Edinburgh with the tallybook of the late debt collector, Isa Stoddart. Her son Lachie thinks Stainsie killed her, but Lachie has apparently committed suicide. To his surprise, Stainsie is the sole beneficiary of Lachie's will and has inherited a dilapidated mansion. Isa's debtors and the local priest who paid Stainsie to leave town want him gone. A certain young mum, Marianne (whose uncle, Wheezy, is Stainsie's drinking buddy) does too, and his ...

Re-release of a controversial novel now made into a movieArthur, who believes himself to be the second son of God, lives at a boarding house in Ponsonby with all the other ex-psych patients released into community care, only to find themselves washed up on the shores of 'cappuccino city' - unwanted and struggling to cope with life on the outside, as their home is threatened with closure. A gentle giant of a man, Arthur realizes his time has finally come, and he has two important tas...