Mark Rutterford

"I don't get... ...the killing of turkeys and the need to shove foodstuffs up their dead bottoms in such imaginative ways."

"You believe that love grows in your body pump and that one person’s body pump connects with another person’s body pump when in love."

'I don't get that you make payments to people to lie about your homes. You put wooden signs up in the street to advertise the liars...'

Short-listed in the Dorset Fiction Award - Oct 2017. Follow link to read this story and an interview with me.

'They were visibly excited in a train-spottery kind of a way, as they pointed to black and white specks flying over the sea. They proclaimed, in a Captain Jack Sparrow kind of voice, ‘Them’s puffins! There’s loads of ‘em on Lundy.’' Recently published in the 'To Hull and Back' anthology 2015. See link below:

'The records I played inspired me to believe that I could do and be anything. Even a man!' VIDEO LINK BELOW

...about your planet

When I was about 6 months old I was a Toby jug. I have photographic evidence of me as a baby boy. I’m sat on a table with arms and legs like the flanks of a ham and I am so round, all round, that had I been dropped, I would indeed have bounced. I wasn’t dropped. I was probably too hefty to pick up.

Superstitious…me? Not a bit. Although I do like the stars – not telescopes and constellations. Horoscopes and star signs. Every New Year I can’t wait for the Sunday papers to tell me what lies ahead. Which month will be a turning point for me.

‘You’re amazing, Shannon. Amazing,’ I said. She held her palm against my cheek then, ignoring the 5am stubble, and said, ‘I’ve always thought you were amazing Tom. You’d be surprised.’ Surprised? I was in need of a defibrillator.

So I find that I’ve spent most of my life ignoring my closest friends, all 88 of them – my 55 white friends and the 33 black. I find that they are always there for me and when we’re together, those piano keys and me, I feel like I’m alive.

'You decide if you believe in heaven – any heaven, one that works for you. You decide if you believe in destiny and angels – I never did, but I do now.'

'I explained that I’d had the flu. That my cough sounded like, but wasn’t tuberculosis. That my voice was usually more David Beckham than Louis Armstrong. And that I was going to my sister’s for Christmas lunch and I needed to buy her a really good present.' AUDIO LINK BELOW

'On the bright side, it’s a New Year. A time for regeneration. Renewal. Reinvention.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: scroll down - the fifth story down

'We’ll talk in the morning and I’ll write again next year. Up here seems closer to you.' Audio link below. Story starts at 21:0

'Most of all, I didn’t want what was now, quite obviously…an L.O.V.E. affair…to falter on the rocks of an unhappy child.' VIDEO LINK BELOW

'We’re walking along Singing a song Walking in a Scotty Wonderland'

'I’m a realist too. I know that nothing will surpass our first kiss. And I know it will not be our last.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: starts at 20:30

‘You could have asked me why the sky is black with birds, why the ten thousand cattle or five thousand pigs. No matter that foxes and sheep walk side by side. No question why otters ride on horses backs. Or the stoat on the deer. No question to ponder why the clock-face of Big Ben cannot be seen for bees? Why every drain within a mile squeaks with rats? No question WHY?' AUDIO LINK BELOW: scroll to fourth story down

'Badger cubs and kittens, baby’s mittens Chocolate buttons and toast' Written for Word Karaoke part of the Bristol Festival of Literature 2015. Inspired by a lyrical genius - see link

'I wouldn’t call it dancing, nor would you if you saw it! But my top tip to letting go is…? Just jump up and down to a happy song. Trust me. You’ll feel better.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: starts at 1:09:40

'I wanted to know her sunshine and her clouds. Her quiet, peaceful mornings and the volcanic eruptions of her nights. Those nights…oh god, those nights.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: story starts at 35:20 Photo (c) Lisa Fryer

'So I measured. Twice and three times of course – it would be really stupid to get such a fundamental thing wrong.' VIDEO LINK BELOW

'For the first time in my life, I understood. I understood the sheer release of going to war, ready to kill…ready to die. Not for my country, but for my Queen. I felt tall and fury and slightly ashamed at the wolf I had become. I guessed, this is what being a man feels like.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: scroll down to 5th story

'You’re quite tactile with me, but I could see it was with everyone and I felt relieved in a way. I flinched at first, I know I did – I’m sorry. But I’ve always been conscious not to invade personal space, so I was nervous when you came into mine.' AUDIO LINK BELOW: starts at 31:30

'When badgers sleep, do badgers dream of honey robbed from bumble bees?' AUDIO LINK BELOW: scroll to bottom of page