F.C. Malby
F.C. Malby has travelled widely, teaching English in the Czech Republic, the Philippines and London. She has a first class joint honours degree in Geography and Education, is a qualified teacher and has worked as a portrait and landscape photographer. She writes novels, short stories and poetry.
F.C. Malby’s debut novel, Take Me to the Castle, won The People’s Book Awards. Her second novel, Dead Drop, is a lyrical, daring thriller about the undercover world of art crime. Her debut short story collection, My Brother Was a Kangaroo, includes award-winning stories published in literary magazines and journals worldwide. Her poetry has appeared in various journals and podcasts.
She is a contributor to anthologies including In Defence of Pseudoscience: Reflex Fiction Volume Five (Reflex Press) with a story which was longlisted in the Reflex Press Quarterly International Flash Competition, Unthology 8 (Unthank Books), and Hearing Voices: The Litro Anthology of New Fiction (Kingston University Press) alongside Pulitzer prize winner, Anthony Doerr
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“He nodded, looking across the room at the sea of photographers and journalists. The microphones spread around him like birds waiting to be fed.”
“The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find - a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the heat of the moment.”
“Mr Martinek turned back to Jana. 'Thirty-eight per cent alcohol, sixty-two per cent fire - all the way from Karlovy Vary.”
“As people's hopes soared, Jana felt a tinge of fear.”
“As the sun lowered into the city's skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people's hopes rising.”
“9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.”
“I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand.”
“To Jana's mind everybody seemed happy to see BAbichka and resisted returning her, like a misplaced package sent to the wrong address. It was as if the recipient opened it up, knowing it should be returned, but wondering who long they could legitimately keep it before being changed with theft.”
“The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. 'Scavengers,' Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals that are too weak to escape - lots of them on battlefields. This looked the same, only the victim wasn't there, just his writing, his typewriter, and bits of dark paper.”
“One word was the method by which the state collected their information. They could reel in the informants and spread them out like tentacles, ready to sting in any direction.”
“The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with piercing eyes that suggested that they knew you, understood you even.”
“Don't ever let anyone tell you that things can't be changed, that things can't be done. The can and they will, if we are united in what we believe.”
“I couldn't bring myself to ask Matka why they had taken him. She pretended that he'd gone away on business. I pretended I knew nothing. My brother and sister believed the lie. There were so many lies that we had to live with...and secrets.”