It’s publication day today for my SHORT STORY The Egg Thief, Wordsworth Short #38.
I created Horvale for Stevie Beck, a fictional dale in Yorkshire with villages, towns, rivers, dales, moors, castles, and even a coast.
An earlier story, not yet published anywhere, is based on an old Whitby legend, the Lagan Bells. But in that story I called them the Horby Bells: Hor- from Horvale, -by short for bay (the same as Whitby). I liked the Lagan name, though. So I created a small group of islands off the coast of Horby called the Lagan Islands. They’re based on the Farne Islands a bit further north in Northumberland.
We’d recently been to the Farne Islands, which had only just reopened following the pandemic. The boat voyage and the pandemic referred to in this story were inspired by our visit. Everything else is pure fiction.
The Egg Thief is Stevie’s first officially published story. You can buy it here.
Oooh, that sounds like fun! Happy publication day, and have a great weekend.
It really is a bit of fun. 😊