My First Published Poems

As a child and adolescent, I loved reading fiction (especially genre fiction) and, on occasion, I attempted to write it — in longhand. This was especially the case in high school when we had weekly class-time essay-writing exercises to do. It took me a long time to consider writing fiction as a serious undertaking with a view to getting it published but I never expected to become a poet.

I was also heavily into playing role-playing games from about age 15 and maintained my interest in them through college and beyond. It’s therefore probably not surprising that my first foray into publishing genre, or genre-adjacent, writing involved a role-playing game scenario which was published in the now long defunct Canadian magazine, Adventures Unlimited, back in the 1990s. However, scenarios are a hybrid form of writing in that they combine a fictional setting, secondary characters, rules and a plot for use by gamers who would play the primary roles in the adventure concerned. It is considered to be closer to non-fiction because of the way scenarios are read and used. So far, it is the only role-playing game scenario that I have ever written for publication.

Despite the success of getting my first written scenario published, this did not immediately lead to any further genre (or genre-related) writing. About a decade later, however, I decided to revise one of my old school essays — a fantasy story — for publication. After a handful of rejections and further revisions, it appeared — as “Demon Eye” — in an American magazine, Aoife’s Kiss (also long defunct), in 2007. It was republished in Swords & Heroes in 2025. Again, this did not lead directly to further genre writing until 2018 when I took an interest in writing microfiction, including a drabble and a bunch of tweet-long stories that I got published in Twitterzines, and which were given new life on Medium.

Meanwhile, over the years, poetry was not something I was heavily attracted to. I did read a modern translation of Beowulf when I was fifteen or sixteen and read the poems and songs that formed part of the text of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy as an older teenager. Of course, I had to study some poems for my English course in high school but it was in elementary school when I was introduced to the concept of poetry.

Although I do not remember the lines now, I wrote an acrostic poem as a class assignment in elementary school. I think I was eleven at the time and my father had recently taught me what an acrostic poem was, whereas my teacher-cum-principal had not mentioned it as a type of poem in class. I was therefore eager to show off my knowledge and so, when my class was assigned to write a poem about what they liked about school, I realized this was my poetic moment! The poem I wrote contained various platitudes about how great school was but if the first letter of each line was read vertically, they spelled out “BORING”, thereby revealing my actual opinion of school.

I was both excited and terrified to hand up my copy book with my handwritten poem at the teacher’s desk in front of the class. I was excited because he might have seen that I knew more about poetry than he would have expected and that he might also have thought me clever for discreetly indicating what I actually thought about school. But I was also terrified that he would think me impudent for what I had written and punish me instead — and that could have meant corporal punishment. So, naturally, my heart was beating fast and I think I held my breath as he read the poem — it was only six lines after all! He ticked the poem at the end with his red pen and may have added a comment to it before giving me back my copy book. I was stunned! He did not say anything about the “BORING” bit — he was not angry nor was he enthralled with what I thought was my clever wordsmithing. What an anti-climax! I still wonder to this day whether he had noticed it was an acrostic poem and decided not to say anything about it or if he was just paying attention to my spelling and the rhyme.

In high school, there were certain poems I liked that we studied, including the first book of Milton’s Paradise Lost (which I read as fantasy rather than allegory — I have always loved his phrase, “darkness visible”) and William Butler Yeats’ “September 1913” (with his “But fumble in a greasy till” leaving a lasting memory) and his “Among School Children” (where “Solider Aristotle played the taws / Upon the bottom of a king of kings” [as if this young king were a musical instrument]).

On a school trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, in England, where William Shakespeare had lived, I purchased a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but still haven’t found time to read most of them…. On one occasion, during a class test when we had to write about the poetry of Austin Clarke, I mentioned that the eponymous character in “The Planter’s Daughter” had attributes (long dark hair and green eyes) that the poet had not actually mentioned. Of course, my teacher had to mention this to the class when he was giving us feedback on our test— I was mortified!

Following school, I had little reason to encounter poetry except in passing in Tolkien’s works, nor did they feature in my studies at college. It would be many years before I would take an interest in it.

In fact, it was not until I was reading other people’s microfiction as well as writing my own in 2018–2019 that I noticed how very short poems like haiku and tanka complemented microfiction. Their concision and the way they could be used to tell a very brief story were attractive to me. When I read such short poems in the online version of Scifaikuest, an American quarterly genre poetry magazine, I thought these were quite fun and wanted to give writing them a go. The magazine’s online edition changes every three months without the previous issues being saved, but the current issue can be enjoyed here. The magazine allows you to submit up to ten short poems at one time although only one to four of them would ever get picked for publication (if they were good enough). I therefore wrote ten poems and submitted them to Scifaikuest in August 2019. Amazingly, for a noob, three of them were accepted by editor Teri Santitoro two weeks later! However, they would not be published until August 2020, one in the online edition, the other two in the print edition. In time, I would find homes for all but one of the seven remaining poems. One of them would not only go on to be published in another magazine (Cough Syrup, now defunct) the following spring, but also it become a finalist for a Dwarf Stars Award! Not bad for debut poems!

That said, they were not my first published poems. That distinction goes to the three poems re-published below. I submitted them to the “Night Terrors”-themed issue of Tigershark Magazine, a non-paying British genre magazine, on 30 September 2019. On 10 October following, the editor, DS Davidson, accepted all three. Tigershock Magazine #24 was published as a PDF and it was made available as a free download on 27 October. This was quite a quick turnaround of less than a month between submission and publication. Of course, the Medium platform allows for a much quicker turnaround for those publications with a daily output. Tigershark seems to be on an hiatus currently. Its last issue, #35, was published in July 2024 and can be downloaded here.

It seems strange to me now that I had such little interest in poetry until just seven years ago, especially as I have had more than seventy poems published since then, with a second poem nominated for the Dwarf Stars Award in 2023. If only I had kept up an interest in writing poetry after my “BORING” acrostic poem, I might have published several collections by now. But, of course, it is never too late to start writing poetry!

As is the convention for haiku (or in this case horrorku) the poems that follow do not bear titles.

the night light’s soft glow
my bedroom door creaks open
shadows and I scream

awake at midnight
I hear breathing close to me
but I live alone

sleep beckons to her
after many sleepless nights
in her dreams it waits

© Greg Fewer, 2026.

As a result of the algorithm change in July 2024, my earnings on Medium had plummeted in the second half of the year. In the first three months of 2025, I earned a mere $1.55.

Down to the end of September 2024, you could be reasonably certain of earning something when a Partner Program member read (as opposed to only viewed) your stories, even if it only amounted to a cent. Then, from 2nd October 2024 to 29th March 2025, in my case, no less than 47 ‘reads’ by Partner Program members resulted in no earnings whatsoever, while those earnings that did accrue largely amounted to just a few cents.

As a whole, I earned $116 last year, or a net $66 after my annual fee to Medium is taken into account. So I made more than twice as much money as I had invested into having a Partner Program account. This year, it is highly unlikely that I would earn even half of the annual fee let alone break even. On this basis, it is no longer sustainable for me to maintain a Partner Program account. Furthermore, in principle, I will not pay anyone to publish or republish my stories, poems and articles which is, in effect, what I would be doing if I stayed in the Partner Program for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, for much of the current calendar year, I’ve kept off Medium both to preserve my mental health and to refocus on submitting my writing to markets off the platform.

I will maintain my basic account for the time being. This will mean that those pieces of my writing that were published for the first time on Medium will remain here. Republished book reviews and microfictions will also stay here for now. However, my republished fiction will be removed over the next few days to facilitate submitting them as reprints elsewhere.

It’s possible that I might occasionally post a story here (which is what I’m doing right now, post-Partner Program), but my focus will be on submitting work to conventional print and online publications, which I had been doing anyway despite having a Medium account. Maybe, in the future, I might rejoin the Partner Program so we’ll see if that ever comes to pass.

Regrettably, I won’t be able to read very many stories on Medium as they will now be behind the paywall nor will anyone be remunerated as a result of my reading their stories. However, I suspect that over the last few months some of my reads of other people’s writing had amounted to zero or very low earnings for them despite my being in the Partner Program.

If anybody would like to stay in touch, please leave a private message with your email address or Mastodon and substack handles.

A brief response to Zulie @ Medium

In an article published in January 2025, Zulie @ Medium discussed how writers can convert a thread of posts they made on social media into an article that could be republished on the Medium platform. This a great idea, and Zulie has offered some good advice on how to transition a social media thread to a full article.

But you don’t just have to republish a thread. Individual posts that are complete microfictions or tiny poems (like haiku) in their own right and were originally posted on social media can be republished on Medium too. I previously published nine microfictions that were either 140 or 280 characters in length, eight of which appeared in two Twitterzines — Cuento Magazine and The Evening Theater’s Workshop. The ninth first appeared in a now defunct webzine. Last year, I submitted these microfictions as reprints to two Medium publications — Future Tales: Second Chances: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror (edited by Deborah Science Fiction Fantasy Short Story Writer) and The Fiction Writer’s Den (edited by JF Danskin, Jay C Wells, H.R. Parker and others)—and all of them were published as individual stories. At the end of each tale, I provided details on where they were first published and included a link to a list I made of the nine microfictions (The Micofiction Collection) in case anyone wanted to read the others.

Overall, Medium is a great place to republish previously published work. However, until Medium sorts out the payment issues members have been experiencing since the latter half of 2024, if you want to make actual money on articles converted from social media threads, then you can always identify paying markets to which you can submit your work by searching the databases of The Grinder, Duotrope or Chill Subs. If you are not interested in writing for pay, these resources also list tons of non-paying genre, general and literary magazines and anthologies alongside the paying ones.

Students on an archaeological expedition find something unexpected

Last summer, Prof. Toupin led a group of students on a week-long expedition to identify archaeological sites in heavily forested northern Saskatchewan. Joking about finding bigfoot, the team discovered some prehistoric campsites, mainly along riverbanks.

On the fourth night, the students and their professor huddled together in their tents during a storm. Between claps of thunder and the howling wind could be heard unintelligible screams.

The next day, everyone woke up safe and sound, though many trees had fallen during the night. Beneath one near the camp, the team was astonished to discover the crushed body of an ape-like humanoid.

This story was originally published in the now defunct Web zine, Page & Spine: Fiction Showcase, Crumbs section, 1 January 2021, at https://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/crumbs/archives/01-2021.

The Expedition was originally published in The Fiction Writer’s Den on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was a fun trip to the fruit and vegetable market….

Pleased with her first trip to the local market, Helen put away her purchases before sitting down to take a bite of a new exotic fruit called a “cocoon berry”. It was delicious, so Helen gobbled up two more!

However, within minutes, she had an acute stomach cramp and became dizzy. When she tried to stand, she fell to the floor and lost consciousness.

Days later, personnel in hazmat suits entered her house and found her body cocooned in a fungal matt.

One of them exclaimed: “That makes 46 victims! Whoever bio-engineered those berries has a lot to answer for!’

This story was originally published in Dirty Girls Magazine, #2 (December 2019), p. 11.

Cocooned! was originally published in The Fiction Writer’s Den on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s never good to be too curious….

The archaeologist explained to the journalist how, unlike other skeletons in this medieval graveyard, this one lay buried face down with the skull between its feet. Apparently, the man concerned was believed to have been a vampire and was buried like this to prevent him escaping his grave to attack the living! They both laughed.

The journalist returned later for another look. Though it was then closed, some passersby saw him entering the archaeological site through a gap in the fence.

The next day, archaeologists found his blood-drenched corpse in the otherwise empty grave, his neck broken and torn open….

This story was originally published in the sadly now defunct magazine, The Sirens Call, #47 (October 2019), p. 153.

The Burial was originally published in The Fiction Writer’s Den on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How can the city escape destruction from the demonic forces arrayed before it?

The shadowform army, approaching in the rainstorm, gave way to its enormous champion, a giant shadowdemon. She approached the walls, the ground trembling as she strode. Stopping, she surveyed the city before her.

Our warriors gaped in fear, for who could possibly defeat such an enemy? Spying the mayor, the shadowdemon shouted towards him in a deep, cavernous voice.

‘Surrender your city, else I level it!’

The mayor was speechless.

As the shadowdemon drew up her hammer to attack, we were astonished when she was struck by lightning and exploded, scattering the shadowforms so that they dissipated from the field.

The Shadowdemon was originally published in Future Tales And Second Chances on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Will John be able to outrun them?

A breeze carries trash down the empty street. John pants heavily, a groaning and shuffling mass of zombies following him. Rounding a bend, he stops abruptly, another horde feeding ahead of him.

Seeking to escape, John pries off a sewer hole cover and climbs down the ladder beneath. Flashlight out, he heads down the sewer, clear water washing his feet.

Hearing bodies splash heavily down the sewer hole behind him, he picks up his pace.

Turning at a junction, he runs into undead sanitation workers who grab and smash him against the sewer wall, their jagged teeth ripping his flesh.

week-long rain
Scott stops searching
for Annie’s Daddy

This haibun was first published in Scifaikuest, xxi(3) (February 2024), p. 39. Scifaikuest is published in distinct print and ephemeral online versions. Print copies can be ordered from the publisher, and the current online issue can be read for free. Back issues of the latter can be found using the Internet Archive.

Trapped! was originally published in Future Tales And Second Chances on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What would it be like to wake up as somebody else — and how would you return to your own body?

Martyn Bedford, Flip (London, Walker Books, 2011, reprinted 2013, paperback: 9781406344233, 296 pages). Includes unpaginated appendix and acknowledgements.

Imagine waking up one morning in an unfamiliar bedroom, in a house you don’t recognize, in a different city from where you live, and in someone else’s body! This is what fourteen-year-old Alex Gray is shocked to discover when he wakes up in the body and home of another fourteen-year-old boy he’s never met, named Philip ‘Flip’ Garamond. How did this happen and what became of his own body and of everyone he knew before? The last thing he remembers is that he was rushing home one evening after spending time with a friend at the start of the Christmas break, but now it’s the summer and he has to get up for school! As Alex awkwardly gets to grips with his new identity as a boy who is popular at school and has different interests (cricket and basketball compared with Alex’s preference for chess and playing the clarinet), he determines to find a way back to his original body and his former life.

Alex is an intelligent, thoughtful and determined teenager. Although he has moments of sadness and despair, he nonetheless adapts to his situation as best he can while not giving up on finding a solution to his peculiar problem. He soon realises that nobody he once knew as himself now recognises him or would accept him as being in Philip’s body. Likewise, he also finds that he needs to act (in so far as this was possible) as Philip whenever he is in the company of the Garamonds or at Philip’s school, lest he get into trouble with the police or end up getting psychiatric treatment. His use of the Internet reveals that something traumatic had happened to him some months beforehand and it helps him find a small discussion group of people with similar experiences to his own, one of whom (Rob) he befriends offline. At school, he also forms a friendship with Cherry, a girl who detects and likes the changes she sees in Philip’s apparent behavior. This friendship creates another dilemma — what will happen to it if Alex reconnects with his original body?

Set in the United Kingdom, where school uniform is de rigeur and the summer holidays don’t begin until July, readers will encounter colloquialisms such as “bladdered”, “gurning”, “scallies” and “squiffy”. The author, Martyn Bedford, also doesn’t shy away from using slang like ‘arse’ and ‘boobs’, words that commonly belong to the adolescent lexicon but are often curiously absent from North American novels aimed at young adults (such as Michael Grant’s Gone series).

Beyond this, the book is well-rooted in contemporary British popular culture. Readers in Britain and Ireland would be familiar with such things as Tango (a fizzy drink) and Monster Munch (a savoury snack), Costa (a café chain), Big Brother (the Channel 4 reality television series), and the mainly British rock bands that Alex and his friend, David, like (the Arctic Monkeys, the Fratellis and the Kaiser Chiefs), though The Killers, an American band that had signed its first record label in the UK, is another favourite of theirs. More internationally renowned celebrities like Shakira and Penelope Cruz are mentioned too but in the context of describing the physical appearance of girls that Alex-as-Philip encounters.

Although this is Bedford’s first young adult novel, he had already established himself as a writer with five adult novels, including Acts of Revision (1996) and The Island of Lost Souls (2006). In Flip, Bedford’s style of writing is often humorous, involving ironic exaggeration (“…she silenced them with a look that could slam a door from ten metres” [p. 184]), minor dilemmas familiar to many teens (“Even the salad was edible, if you pushed the tomatoes and bits of beetroot to the side of your plate. And the spring onions. And the radish.” [p. 55]), descriptions of people (the school nurse had “pointy fingers” and “Her forearms, [Alex] noted, were as hairy as a man’s” [p. 187]), discussions about subjects such as the methodology and etiquette of lighting farts (p. 215), and the sarcastic put-downs and comebacks whenever Alex-as-Philip bickered with Philip’s sister. The writing becomes more serious whenever Alex considers the prospect of living the rest of his life as Philip or in considering how he might return to normality.

Although the book does not push any religious agenda or is deeply philosophical, it nevertheless touches on concepts of personal identity — how we see ourselves versus how others see us. On the one hand, we have a public persona — our physical appearance as well as our familial, institutional and geographical associations — which root us in place and time. We identify ourselves by these associations as much as the people we interact with. On the other, we have a private self in which many of our thoughts, ideas and interests are not shared with others, and we may find our perception of the world around us differs from them also. Flip accentuates these differences because Philip’s family, friends and teachers have developed expectations in the behaviour of the person they see and hear, yet Alex, who now occupies Philip’s body, thinks and would like to act completely at odds with these expectations. In the process, Alex comes to appreciate his old, familiar, life better.

In conclusion, Flip is a fun and fast-paced, yet thought-provoking, contemporary fantasy adventure that will appeal to adults and young adults alike.

This book review was originally published in Tightbeam, #280 (2017), pp 13–14.

A teenage boy begins learning the ranger’s craft in this medieval fantasy

John Flanagan, The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice #1) (Corgi Yearling, 2007, paperback: 9780440867388). Various print, audio and e-book versions are also available.

First published in 2004, The Ruins of Gorlan is the first of twelve novels in the Ranger’s Apprentice series by Australian author, John Flanagan. Originally written to encourage the author’s twelve-year-old son to read, the books have since gained thousands of fans around the world.

The Ruins of Gorlan opens by introducing the reader to Morgarath, Lord
of the Mountains of Rain and Night, a desolate region in the south-east of an island that is in some ways analogous to, and inspired by, seventh-century Britain (with a touch of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth). (A map of the island is provided early in the book.) Fifteen years previously, Morgarath — then lord of Gorlan — had attempted to overthrow the king of Araluen, a country that occupies most of the island. Defeated, he had been exiled to the Mountains of Rain and Night where he is now plotting again to take Araluen’s throne.

The narrative then shifts its focus to Will, an orphan and a ward of Lord
Arald. Having reached the age of fifteen, Will and his ‘wardmates’ — Alyss,
George, Horace and Jenny — are selected by different Craftmasters to be their apprentices. Will is disappointed that he’s not selected for Battleschool but is puzzled when a ranger named Halt picks him as his apprentice. Although the network of rangers across the country use their skills in espionage, tracking, concealment, and archery to provide the kingdom with a first line of defense against its would-be enemies, Will is fearful of them because of their mysterious and secretive ways and their supposed ability to wield magic. Halt’s taciturn nature and the constant chores and exercises he gives Will do not make it easy for the boy to warm to him but, over a number of months, Will and Halt come to respect each other as the apprentice does his master’s bidding and hones his skills as a budding ranger.

During the same period, Will’s wardmates are also developing their respective skills in diplomacy, cooking, legal studies and, in the case of Horace, that of combat. Horace demonstrates to his superiors that he has natural martial abilities, but all the while he finds himself being bullied by a group of older boys at the school, and this comes to affect Horace’s friendship with his wardmates.

Meanwhile, Morgarath’s scheming becomes increasingly evident in Araluen. As a matter of urgency, while still only an apprentice with a few months’ training, Will is forced to prove his mettle as a ranger when he
accompanies Halt to confront the inhuman Kalkara, Morgarath’s deadly assassins!

I liked Flanagan’s play on names for this fantasy version of Britain and Europe (e.g. The Solitary Plain is substituted for Salisbury Plain and has its own Stonehenge-like monument, while the Vikings menacing the eastern coast are here rendered as the Skandians). It’s a pity that though Flanagan has based his fantasy world on an alternate history of Europe, he has decided to stick to a more traditional gender division of labour among the
new apprentices, with the boys being trained as a ranger, a soldier and a lawyer, and the girls being apprenticed as a diplomat and a cook. I’m also a bit sceptical that ‘Ranger horses could maintain a canter all day without
tiring’ (p. 236) and it seems anachronistic to use centimeters as a unit of measure (p. 250). Sometimes, I feel the skills that Will develops seem to come too easily to him, making me wonder why he needs to practice them at all!

However, the book as a whole is a fun and easy read with plenty of action and humor. Although the protagonist and his wardmates are aged 15, the publishers market the book as being for ages 10+, and this is reflected, for the most part, in the writing. Nevertheless, older teenagers and young-at-heart adults will enjoy The Ruins of Gorlan.

This review was first published in Tightbeam, #284 (2018), p. 12.