Excuse me but never underestimate the power of a home baked item

(yes I look this good when I wake up)

Thirteen Hundred Crumbs

I have counted them all, there are thirteen hundred of them, on bench tops, littering the floors, dropped casually whilst watching the telly, cast aside, unwanted.

I have counted them all and gathered them up into a collection of short stories called Thirteen Hundred Crumbs.

Every week I will post a few crumbs here on my blog, extracts from stories that are waiting in the wings, ready to be swept off their feet onto the pages of a book and into the homes of crumb lovers everywhere.

So do excuse me, because now, even after all these years, all the gigs, all the laughter I have tried to squeeze out of audiences there are still crumbs in my comedy.

Crumbs from the story SPIT AND POLISH

Grandpa John comes in for the kiss. 
He smells of Germolene. His head, shoes and nails are as shiny as the one -pound coin he’s holding up high, like it’s a golden doubloon just in from a shipwreck. It’s the last Friday of school term, before we finish up for the long summer that is never hot. We’ve just had our lunch, a pastie from Marks & Spencer, dead posh.

Grandpa John never just hands over the pound coin, so that I can say “thank you”, then head back down to school. Instead he pinches it so tight I expect it to be bruised by the time I get it. The wiry red hair on his hand and fingers is tufty and looks like it’s been stuck on badly. His nails are shiny, like he’s spent ages polishing them.

My nails are stubby and the cuticles are ragged and misshapen. My mam tells me that I should push the cuticles down or my nails won’t be able to breathe properly. I think she’s daft for saying that, though, because I don’t think that nails can suffocate...

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF CRUMBS ON THIS STORY PLEASE CONTACT ME DIRECTLY ON justinesless@yahoo.com

IF YOU ARE A PUBLISHER, THEN PLEASE GET YOUR PEOPLE TO TALK TO MY PEOPLE.

Excuse me there are crumbs in my wordle

I have a lovely collection of short stories which form part of my Masters by research in creative writing.

My supervisor tells me that they are  sub - miss - able.

I say they are un- miss - able.

The wordle below offers up the very best words from the manuscript.

If you would like to post a review then please do so.

If you represent a publishing house

 then please get your people to talk to my people.

Please note: there were no crumbs harmed during the making of the manuscript.

 

Excuse me there are so many crumbs in my comedy

Please note this story has been edited.
A full transcript of the story is available on request via email:
justinesless@yahoo.com
I have been writing this short story since I first stood up to a microphone  in a comedy room over a decade ago.
I am doing an MA by research in creative writing at La Trobe University on gender and comedy, this story which forms part of my creative response has been written after many interviews with women in the comedy industry and hours of research.
When the news broke about the US comedian doing what he did (I will not blemish my blog with his name or details of his actions) I decided to publish this on my blog.
This story is for every woman who has ever felt unsafe, violated, insulted, hurt, or undermined in a comedy room.
For every woman who has felt paralysed by the intense anger when they are dismissed on stage, not given gigs, had an MC openly criticise them then introduce another 26 year old single white male like they are a hero.
Comedy is a craft that requires hours and hours of work to do it well.
You are not 'just born funny.'
There are so few spaces where you can learn the craft and the comedy rooms, bars and clubs remain male dominated and controlled.
To every man who says I haven't seen you perform so I can't give you a gig. That comment is probably to a woman, be the change, give them a gig and think about why you haven't seen them perform.
This story is for every man that has ever said : 'Women just can't take a joke and that's why they aren't funny.'
This story is in response to Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the need for that festival, as the highest grossing festival in Australia to support women, to not dwindle Jeez Louise into a one hour address in a 30 day festival, but to be a game changer and support all women everywhere to get into and remain in comedy.
STEP UP TO THE MIC LADIES AND STAY THERE.
MAKE SOME NOISE.
TAKE UP SPACE.
KNOW YOUR POWER.
SPIRAL BOUND  a short-ish story.

The doorway is filled with a huddle of them, waiting for the night to begin, smoking cigarettes and swapping stories.

No one notices Mary go in. She can go most places and simply not be seen, except to the charity shop where she volunteers each week. Customers and people who work there notice both her absence and her presence. But in most other situations she is just an old woman getting about her business, invisible in the rush of life.

Mary is greeted by the dank smell of smoke and the dregs of Carlton draft that have found their way to the carpet over the years.

After getting a glass of water from the jug on the bar, Mary sits at the back of the room, her bag next to her, the current notebook she is using and her pen, waiting for the night to begin.  

It’s the usual kind of set up, mismatched chairs, an old sofa to one side, some fairy lights draped around the walls, a microphone on a stand, a space, sometimes slightly elevated, but often not, where the acts will perform.

The person who runs the room is strutting as people approach him, shaking his hand, all of them speaking just a little too loud, wanting to be noticed.

The online information had said the evening started at eight, but in keeping with the shambolic nature of these events it’s not until 8.30 that the proceedings begin. The crowd that’s been milling out the front move inside. There are only four ‘real’ punters, and they sit on one table flicking their thumbs over their phones, filling their glasses from the jug of beer in the middle of the table.

The guy who runs the room heads to the stage. Mary has the measure of him: his walk, his demeanour, the crumpled checked shirt, runners, scruffy pair of jeans. The Uniform, she calls it.  He’s like so many of them and all of them make her think about Corry....
Please note this story has been edited.

          A full transcript of the story is available on request via email:
          justinesless@yahoo.com

Excuse me Doreen has some crumbs she wants to clean up.

An extract from the Newstead Short Story Festival Tattoo

Launch Party - 

This is the story of Doreen:

Brian, Brian Brian!

Do not confuse Doreen’s lament with those of a woman in the throes of passion.

Brian!

Doreen makes contact with Brian’s body, by way of a short sharp kick to the calf. Brian’s nocturnal nasal noises pause momentarily, then settle once more into their regular, rumbling inhalation and lip flapping exhalation which habitually interrupts Doreen’s sleep.
‘Brian!’ she shouts, just to feel a moment of relief. Doreen stands, then crashes back onto the bed vengefully, willing Brian’s snoring to end and wishing that she could go back to sleep. The futility of the wish leaves her fuming.


Doreen drops her legs over the side of the bed into her slippers, she slams the bedroom door then edges along the dark passageway, her forget me not floral nightdress ballooning around her legs as she makes her way to the living room.

I remember the time I had stood out there on Brian’s lawn one Sunday, looking at the patterns that the mower had made, just waiting there alongside the garden gnome. I was there because Brian had taken it upon himself to make the gravy, out of the blue, not so much as a by your leave. He’d just got up off the chair from reading the Sunday paper, calm as you like and said:

 ‘I’ll make the gravy today.’ Just stood up, strode across the kitchen linoleum, all how’s your father? ‘I’ll make the gravy.’ He’d said. Like that’s what he did every week.

What possessed him I’ll never know. He’d got the box of Gravox down from the cupboard, scraped the meat juice from the bottom of the pan and stirred it and stirred it. I wouldn’t have minded if this is what he normally did, but it wasn’t.

I had looked pointedly at Brian whilst he’d stirred the gravy. I was wearing the expression I  normally use for when I have too much loose change in my purse. But that didn’t work. So, I tried the expression I’d used that time when we’d gone to Aunt Peggy’s funeral and afterwards in the church hall, Joan Hampshire, the woman from O’Keefe Street had come in all organized, a pavlova base, cream in a bowl already whipped and with what everyone had assumed to be a tin of passionfruit for the top.

Then out of nowhere, Joan had pulled three peppermint crisp bars from her bag and smashed them with a rolling pin. Lord only knows where that had come from. Who brings a rolling pin to a funeral?

But there she was, bold as brass, with her three peppermint crisp bars, a rolling pin, a shop bought pavlova base and some whipped cream. At a funeral.

I’d had pulled my lips tight, flared my nostrils, jutted my chin out. Then I made a braying noise, pushing the air out of my nose, quickly. I  assumed that this would have had an effect on Joan. But Joan had acted like it was the most natural thing in the world, standing there making a peppermint crisp pavlova at a funeral. Never mind that there were forty-five of Louise Dalggetty’s scones already made.

The expression hadn’t worked that day on Joan, Doreen’s neighbor, but Stella folded her arms, pressed her lips together, raised her eyes brows and had given me a quick nod of the head in approval.

I’d got that expression out the day that Brian had made the gravy. But it made no difference. Brian was even whistling whilst he stirred. I’d stood out there in the garden next to the garden gnome till it was done. I’d even left my pinny on, gone outside and stood next to the garden gnome, its nose was bulbous, its gut protruding, not unlike Brian, I’d thought at the time.

We didn’t speak about it over the roast dinner, which truth be known was a bit stringy that day.