Recent Alex Birch submissions

A few of you might be wondering about the recent Alex Birch submissions. Alex was one of the first authors we approached when the library facility was first created and he gave us permission to load anything he had written. We loaded the majority of his stories but at the time I didn't load the 'photo stories' which he featured on his blog, A Taste of the Birch, as I thought they were better viewed along with the images. However, after his death, I thought we should go ahead and load them and make sure they were preserved and I had just begun the process when his blog was removed. As far as I'm aware no-one knows how it came to be shut down but I have to imagine someone did it acting on his behalf. Anyway, Hermione over at http://hermionesheart.blogspot.com/ has been able to retrieve the missing photo stories and has very kindly sent them to us for loading.

And well worth the effort. The ones I've read so far work as stand-alone fiction very well - they are mostly dialogue, with some stage-direction-like brackets giving movements and thoughts, but all easily followed, and the absence of photos just allows the reader to use their own imagination!!

I agree there. I've noticed that myself that they appear to be as scripts at times. They are all very nicely done though. I did make comments as if he were still with us.

Thanks for loading those, Febs. I'm sure a lot more readers will appreciate it.

B

The guy was a great writer....now at least I know he is not sending stories in from somewhere else. I was beginning to think once a Library member always a Library member.

but isn't that so?

Long ago, Alex came onto the scene with S.S.S. and I welcomed him. He was using "Alexis" at the start and I thought he was female so flirted with him a bit. He quickly informed me that was not the case at all and consequently, shortened it to "Alex". We formed a friendship over the years and his sudden loss saddened me deeply. Very intelligent man, great writer and an all-around good guy. I could go on and on but I won't ...

That's a nice write up for him, wooz. I'm sure it would be appreciated.

B