How the Prime Minister's tea lady saved the Olympics - a tall tale from Susan Greenhill.

A new piece by Dave McGowan, "Chrissie Clarke lived a few doors up from me with his mum, sister, five brothers and several dogs. They were all totters and thieves, even the dogs."

An overheard fragment of the lives of characters that populate a night shelter.

"The old men running the apartheid regime finally threw up their hands and declared a state of emergency in 1985. By this time, my own emergency was already well underway..."

A short story from Verena Tay's collection Spectre: Stories from Dark to Light, published by Math Paper Press in Singapore in 2012.

Dave The Hat is looking forward to a night out in Soho with his friend Nobby... "He is a large man, with a large suit, head and face, and a Henry VIII-style beard. He doffs his battered bowler hat and turns round to reveal the word “NO” razor-cut into his hair.  He is wearing Crocs."

An excerpt from Birkbeck Alumnus Susana Medina's new short story collection Red Tales Cuentos Rojos from the biligual edition - written in English and Spanish.

An excerpt from Courttia Newland's latest book The Gospel According to Cane: One winter afternoon a baby is kidnapped from a parked car. Two decades later, the mother is followed and then approached by a young man who claims that he is her son...