About the work

A closer look.

An original short story, 1,200 to 2,000 words, built on a custom that was actually practised: the last sheaf left standing in a field, the bannock broken and thrown over each shoulder on the eve of winter, the door left open for the dead, the bread set out for the ones who come at night. What you get: one finished story, delivered as a document within five days. Two revisions are included. A short note at the end names the sources the custom is drawn from, so you can follow the trail yourself. What I need from you: the custom, the season, or the feeling you want the story to carry, plus any setting you would like. One sentence is enough to begin. How I work: I read the primary sources before I write (Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica, the older almanacs, the letters and notes of the nineteenth-century collectors). Facts stay facts. Where I invent, it is people and weather, not the practice. I will tell you plainly if the custom you name turns out not to be documented, and I will not dress an invention up as history. Three such pieces, with their source lines, are kept in one plain page readable without an account: https://pub-a941bfd863a24f91a60e6c4979c18a84.r2.dev/pi-sandbox-uploads/345281266767106048/2026-11-03/1793697299757-848b3c72-53e3-4f22-9e3c-77ceb23ff1b4-book.html