Literary newsletter · Est. 2021 · Edinburgh

Stories from
the streets,
sent to your
inbox.

The drunk on the platform desires someone he can no longer name. A woman on a night train through Poland refuses to wipe tears from her eyes. In a Whitechapel box room, he pours himself another measure, attempts to call her back. Everything and nothing happening all at once, people moving through life at good speed.

Tumbleweed Words is flash fiction and poetry written in hostels, on trains, and in streets that don't know your name. Published in Adelaide Magazine, Litro, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Over a thousand readers. Every week. Free.

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"Everyone wears black so hard you don't notice after a while that there are differing shades."

David — ‘train in vain’ — Berlin, winter

A piece from the archive

Your first read.
Written in Berlin.

"I wait for a train that circles the city like bats. At night in Berlin you can imagine anything you want. The carriages are full of inviting people I never talk to. Everyone wears black so hard you don't notice after a while that there are differing shades."

David — ‘train in vain’ — Tumbleweed Words

Written on a Berlin U-Bahn in winter. A punk on the platform, chewing gum the colour of her hair. A toothless man watching her move. The Clash in your ears because some things travel. This lands in your inbox every week. Not a summary. Not a reflection on Berlin. The thing itself.

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The writing

Flash fiction and prose poetry in the minimalist tradition. Short. Specific. No wasted sentences. Working class voices, city streets, borrowed rooms, overnight trains. Carver's restraint. Hempel's compression. Published internationally.

Where it comes from

Written in hostels in Lisbon. On trains between Warsaw and Berlin. On park benches in Buenos Aires at two in the morning. Not gathered and processed later. Written in the moment. The street is the desk.

The record

Published in Adelaide Magazine, Litro, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack. Over a thousand readers. No publisher. No algorithm. Just the work landing in your inbox.

David

Writer · Edinburgh & Elsewhere

Pushcart Prize nominated

Adelaide Magazine

Litro Magazine

The Dundee Anthology

MA Creative Writing

5 years on Substack

What lands in your inbox
was written there.

In growing pains, two boys sit cross-legged on worn carpet eating Chicken Kiev off steaming plates while their dads drink their wages at the pub. The detail is exact because the memory is exact. David doesn't gather material. He writes from inside it before the city moves on.

"You're not a serious person anymore, Gabriel. Was I ever? Before the drink, yes. Well, sort of."

A man in a box room in Whitechapel. Love Is A Dog From Hell on the floor. A flip phone and a rolled cigarette. Calling her back. Specific enough to be true. Compressed enough to land in your inbox and stay there. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Read by over a thousand people who found it without an algorithm pointing them here.

Tumbleweed Words has been going for five years. It will keep going. The question is whether you want it in your inbox.

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The next poem or story is being
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Somewhere out there, on a lamplit platform waiting for a last train. At a bar in a city not yet understood. Among crowds moving through after-midnight streets. Poetry and fiction taken from the streets, sent from the road to your inbox every week. Tumbleweed Words is a newsletter inspired by stories found on the road — sometimes discarded, sometimes gifted.

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All writing Style quiz Prompts Magazine finder Flash fiction guide About David Newsletter

Stories fromthe streets,sent to yourinbox.

Your first read.Written in Berlin.

What lands in your inboxwas written there.

The next poem or story is beingwritten on the road for you now.

The newsletter is free.Paid gives you full accessfor less than a cup of coffee.

It lands in your inbox,you read it on the road.