Inspiring Fiction

Inspiring Fiction’s Autumn Prompt was Belonging this year, offering a 2,500-word contest for publication in Mirk Fantasy Magazine.

It’s October. The wind is cool and crisp, the leaves are brittle and changing, darkness comes earlier outside my window, and I wanted to revisit a children’s story I wrote in May about a unique fantasy character.

It begins with the corpse of a dead witch, Urlwyn, whose poppets - Sabine and Clover - must find purpose in her absence.

The word 'popet’ is Middle English meaning “child” or “doll,” and is often heard around the modern U.K. in the same context.

Poppets are instruments of folklore and witchcraft - sympathetic magic - dolls created to help aid a person through illness or troubling times or to cast spells on people.

In Urlwyn’s Ward, we are swept up in Sabine’s point of view following a cataclysm that leaves Clover injured and needing a new purpose.

I’m expecting results in a few months - fingers crossed!

Inspiring Fiction contacted me in an email on December 8, 2023. They couldn’t use the story, but it did make their longlist of twenty stories up for consideration.

Hey, that’s not bad! Don’t worry, girls — we’ll have better luck next time!