Cath Holland

@caththewriter.bsky.social

Writer of fiction. Published by Mslexia, NFFD, Dead Ink Books, Fictive Dream. Features ed God Is In The TV: https://bsky.app/profile/godisinthetvzine.bsky.social Infrequent DJ. Was trophy wife, now Andy's widow. Nepo baby. cathbore@gmail(.)com.

Andy received numerous blood transfusions from the beautiful NHS, saving his life on numerous occasions when he was ill - and keeping him alive for longer. Blood gave us the precious gift of time. Here I was today at the Liverpool blood donation centre with my latest donation in return.

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It's our first date anniversary today. There's no name for that, is there. Especially when one of you isn't here anymore and the earth still turns, turns. Andy's hair and psychedelic shirt: 10 out of 10 each.

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Today was all about swifts and house martins - on the Poetry Picnic organised by Wirral Poetry Festival. We visited nesting sites at Chirk Aqueduct and St Mary’s Church, and learned about the heroic conservation efforts to help the birds breed and thrive. Lots of writing took place as well!

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I'm pleased to be part of the The Widowed Collective's Widowed And Forgotten awareness campaign, which launched today. It marks International Widows Day on Tuesday 23rd June. I hope mine and Andy's story increases understanding of grief, isolation and life after loss. Photo: @bevunit.bsky.social

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FlashFlood: 'I Miss Smoking' by Cath Holland #nffd2026

'I Miss Smoking' by Cath Holland

Cellophane crackle. Pop open packet. Cardboard-paper sigh. Lips wrap around filtered tip. Pink matchstick scratches sandpaper. Zippo click, roar and FIRE. Hot electric orange glow. Smoke tickles back of throat. Flick-flick ash. A sensual ceremony bonding outcast rebels with a cause to ask ‘anyone got a light?’ Wendy at school nicks your dinner money turns into your bestie at break and short years later your CEO is call me Dave for the length of time it takes to smoke a beautiful white cigarette, the love of all our lives. Still – pack it in eventually or die. You give up everything but dirty yellow fingers. No whiffs. No butts. Grieve for a friend who is no such thing. But it was good while it lasted, weren’t it. And even after all this time sometimes walking down the street a snifter of ciggie smoke floating tickles tastebuds. Takes all the self-respect you own not to snatch the rollup out of that stranger’s hand. And suck on it. Hard. Cheeks turned inside out. Second hand-me-down smoke. What a drag. Not even your favourite brand. But you’ll take it. Inhale deep. In and out, and again. Taking time. Dreaming. Recalling when all possibilities were eternal, endless. Then you walk on. Leave it. Get on with your day.   --- Cath Holland is a writer of fiction and fact based on Merseyside, published by Mslexia, Deak Ink Books, Fictive Dream, Arachne Press.  

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FlashFlood: 'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' by Karen Jones #nffd2026

'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' by Karen Jones

12 am: Set alarm for work, switch off light, cuddle into duvet. 12.30 am: The suit Jackie Kennedy wore when her husband was murdered is preserved in an acid-free container in a windowless vault. Wonder why you remembered that. 1 am: Mull over Kennedy assassination. 1.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 2 am: Remember that time in 1979 when Joan Bolton said your boobs were weird – said yours are pointed when they should be pear shaped. Remember how devastated you were that your boobs were wrong. Realise you should have said, “Well at least I’ve got boobs.” Congratulate yourself on coming up with perfect response, 47 years too late. 2.30 am: Consider buying cat. Think of name for cat. Worry about cat dying. 3 am: Try to recall names of all seven dwarves. 3.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 4 am: Try to remember theme tune to Magpie. 4.30 am: Go to toilet. 5 am: Try to remember full names of the characters in The Odd Couple and the actors who played them in both film and TV series. 5.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. REPEAT-REPEAT-REPEAT! 6 am: Dogs definitely have bollocks, but do bees have knees? 6.45 am: Tut. No point in sleeping now. 6.46 am: Fall into deep sleep. 7 am: Switch off alarm. Ach, well, time for work. Those planes won’t land themselves.   --- Karen Jones won first prize in the Cambridge Flash and Reflex Fiction and second prize in Fractured Lit micro. She is an editor for NFFD anthology. Her Novellas-in-Flash, When It’s Not Called Making Love, and Burn It All Down are published by Ad Hoc Fiction and Arroyo Seco Press respectively. 'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' was first published in Flash Fiction Festival Two in 2018.

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Vinyl Club at Artefact Coffee and Turntables. I played Welsh, French, and American pop. On the bus into town a man in a big hat elbowed his way onto the vehicle before me. Going home he was in the queue so I made sure to get on the bus first.

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Reform’s Robert Kenyon already getting a pasting on Question Time Well done to the woman from audience who said ‘I’d rather be represented by a career politician than a sexist plumber’