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Alan Beard

@alanbeard.bsky.social

700 followers 1.3K following 61 posts

Short Story/Flash writer. Two collections: Taking Doreen out of the Sky (Picador, 1999); You Don’t Have to Say (Tindal Street Press, 2010). Third collection ‘Afternoon Drinking’ out 2025. Tom Gallon Award. Best British Short Stories; Best Microfiction etc

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Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

‘There’s even a shortage of beggars,’ she said, ‘or perhaps it’s their day off.’

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

Hey I wanted to tell him, we can be equally miserable. We can sit in Wetherspoons together with its 7 quid rounds and cheap burgers growing into our frailness together our white hair. Our bar stool future ahead, our Stella and crisps life, our Sunday gatherings at the Toby Carvery.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

The night before we’d had a sesh, afternoon drinking stretching into evening as the kids came back and told us drunken on the sofa of their swotty day, how Shay had fallen out with another friend because X fancied her. I can’t help being beautiful! We laughed and agreed she was.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

Turned out all the friends he thought he had were her friends & he spent 20 years alone, apart from visits from his son. Then this bloke he worked with decades ago, on the line, turned up. Praised him, said the years had been kind to him & what a lovely son he had. Are you proud, Des? You should be.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 1d

Had lazy country eyes, hardly ever looked straight at you. He used to bring me coffee in the mornings before he went off to Computer House. He had a uniform. I’d wake to find the coffee cold, clingy in the clear Pyrex mug.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 2d

Front and back cover of my new story collection, coming out November (launch on the 6th at Voce Books, Birmingham 7pm). Floodgate Press have done such a great job!

Reposted by Alan Beard

Voce Books @vocebooks.bsky.social · 6d

🗣️ AUTUMN/WINTER EVENTS AT VOCE BOOKS

📚 Hear from a true specialist of short-form fiction as Birmingham-based writer @alanbeard.bsky.social joins WENDY ERSKINE to launch his new @floodgatepress.bsky.social collection AFTERNOON DRINKING.

🎟️ Please book your ticket via Eventbrite, link in bio

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 7d

Picked up by car & the city is windows in lights & music
slanting up over the bonnet like a slow wind & the detritus,
paper, sticks & dust lifting, look delicious & the people are like models sashaying & everything looks ready to be tasted & drunk of like a feast or party we will arrive at soon.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 25d

Days so dull it was like they weren’t really happening. I thought everybody knew our father was a lunatic. He never stopped writing the bishop letters.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 27d

Neighbour singing softly to herself & calling to her cat. She was sweet to it as to a baby but shouted at other cats that came near. They’ve had newts, salamanders, tropical fish, frogs, a run over hedgehog, dogs, tortoise, no birds, don’t like birds. A strip of flowers grow out of the dead bodies.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 28d

The boy followed me and a friend home from the pub one night. We stopped to talk to tell him to bugger off, but I let him snatch a kiss under lamplight, fog round about, my friend going, disappearing, half of her only, back of her legs.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 29d

Thanks for re-posting, Ian!

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · 29d

My story What Days are Like, placed 3rd in the Cambridge prize has been published online The Short Story. theshortstory.co.uk/short-story-...

Short Story: What Days Are Like, by Alan Beard - TSS Publishing

3rd Place in the Cambridge Short Story Prize 2025 * He lay with his son beside him telling him it was a beautiful day outside the window and he tried to say some thing back to him, something. Anything...

theshortstory.co.uk

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 10

Thanks, Nina!

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 10

She talked about cooking and food and how she hated Birmingham and her teacher husband.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 10

Kids sing in the alley, he thinks they’re trying to get him to come out and chase them. Karate Man Fined for Killing Dog. Somebody drank our milk and left the bottle.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 4

Once, on acid together, I saw how ugly he really was; but, I thought, maybe he sees me that way too. We both kept mum about it.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 4

The expendable wench in Hammer horror films.
‘Yes, off to see the Mayor. Got to report a dead goat.’

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 3

The story broke into the man’s life, ran alongside him for a bit, then left him to struggle on his own.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 3

‘The crisps’ main claim to fame is they’re not sold in supermarkets’ he said to her, reading from the back of his cheese and onion. On another table they compared bees with wasps.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Sep 3

How I long to smoke and shoot the breeze / on a wooden bench in a pub garden / pints of Stella sparkling.

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Aug 18

Pleased to announce (to no one) that I came third in the Cambridge Prize competition and my story will soon be published on theshortstory.co.uk site. theshortstory.co.uk/competitions...

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Aug 15

Delighted to be on the shortlist for the Cambridge Short Story prize: theshortstory.co.uk

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Jul 29

All he wanted was treacle tart
Not too much pastry

Alan Beard @alanbeard.bsky.social · Jul 29

What can he steal from you is his first thought. He preyed on couples in pubs, provoking arguments, cheering on rows, on the look out for a corner of soul he could pluck, twist, hurt.