Liberty Tales () von Katy Darby

2015 marked the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and Arachne Press celebrated with an evening of stories, poetry and song on the subject of Liberty, now collected together in book form. The call out continued until the end of the year, and here are the collected and eclectic responses, from authors and poets from all corners of the UK and further afield, including Sarah Evans, Nick Rawlinson, Helen Morris, Owen Townend, Alison Lock, Peter de Ville, Cassandra Passarelli, David Guy, Carolyn Eden, Brian Johnstone, Andrew McCallum, Bernie Howley, Jeremy Dixon, Liam Hogan, Jim Cogan, Katy Darby, David Mathews, Anna Fodorova, Cherry Potts, Richard Smyth.

Katy Darby co-runs Liars' League (liarsleague.com) and teaches Short Story Writing and Novel Writing at City University, London. Her first novel, The Whores' Asylum, was published by Penguin in February 2012. Her personal website is katydarby.com. Katy is the co-editor of our Liars' League anthologies, London Lies, Lovers' Lies, (award winning) Weird Lies and We/SheKate Foley is a widely published, prize-winning poet and former president of Suffolk Poetry Society. She has read in many UK and European locations. Her first collection, Soft Engineering was short listed for best first collection at Aldeburgh.Her working life has ranged from delivering babies to conserving delicate archaeological material. She became Head of English Heritage's scientific and technical research laboratories. Although she has always written poetry it wasn't until she gave up the day job that she began to publish more widely.She now lives with her wife, between Amsterdam and Suffolk, where she performs, writes, edits, leads workshops and whenever possible works with artists in other disciplines.Helen Morris was one of five winners of the Solstice Shorts competition 2015. She lives and works in Essex. She tries to fit in writing stories between doing the washing for three sons, swimming too much, eating delicious food and drinking good beer.David Mathews is one of the winners of the Solstice Shorts Festival Short Story Competition. His story in Solstice Shorts: Sixteen Stories about Time is Wednesday Afternoon.For 35 years David was a work psychologist. That gave him a license to mind other people's business. He comes from Wales and lives in Bath and SW France. Recently his collection of short stories was shortlisted for the Impress Prize, Brittle Star magazine published his story 'Florence, who made mustard', and Audio Arcadia are currently recording 'Removed' about a man who looks for stones.Jeremy Dixon was born in Essex and now lives in rural South Wales making Artist's Books that combine poetry and photography. His poems have appeared both online and in print in Roundyhouse Magazine, Riptide Journal, Lighthouse Journal, Durable Goods, and Really System, among others.Anna Fodorova has made TV animation films, written TV film scripts, worked as lecturer in art colleges, and is now in private practice as a psychotherapist.Her children's book:'Carlo the Crocodile', was published by A.C.Black, and her novel'The Training Patient', and a story included in'Tales of Psychotherapy', were published by Karnac.With Arachne Press, Anna has stories in'Stations' and in'Liberty Tales'.Nick Rawlinson is an actor and writer based in Bristol.A vagrant at heart, Cassandra has spent much time wandering, from Guatemala to Burma, between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. She's published a couple of dozen stories and been short-listed for literary prizes, most recently the Beverley Prize. She lives in East Devon with her daughter.