My grandma had bulging eyes and thick fingers. ‘Imagine the scene when I die. It will be like this: at my wake, you’ll string paper streamers from the ceiling, and they’ll remind you of my skin. As the evening wears on, they’ll droop, their edges will scrape along the top of the cream cake. Your father won’t notice. He will be on his second bottle of wine, red-cheeked, stroking the thigh of a friend of your mother’s, trying to get closer and closer to the top of her leg. She’ll be too polite...

Submissions are now open for the Summer ‘26 edition of Scratch A4! ​ Enter your brilliant < 1000 word story before 25 April - to be in with a chance to be read at our Summer '26 event in London on Saturday 6 June. For information on how to enter and an entrance ticket, submit your story here! ​ The Judges are: Gurnaik Johal - Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Emily Fish - Editor at Hutchinson Heinemann, an imprint of...

Get your copy of our hugely anticipated eighth title from Scratch Books! Then come and ask its authors a question in Foyles Charing Cross next Saturday!