Whitchurch author creates scrolls of stories in genres from fantasy to romance
WHITCHURCH author Rhys Thomas is selling tiny short stories that fit inside a matchbox as a creative and quirky Christmas gift.
Best known for the novels The Secret Life of Sam Holloway (2019) and The Suicide Club (2010) , Mr Thomas has now turned his talents to help fill Christmas stockings.
Over the years, he has written hundreds of short stories but found it difficult to categorise them into genres that would cater to the market.
“I ended up with what felt like a notebook of weird little things I could never sell but wanted to give a home to,” he said.
With the help of his mother and the occasional cameo from his cat Henry VII he set to work printing his short stories onto tiny scrolls that could fit inside a matchbox as a fun way of showing his work.
Each one contains the author’s signature and the stamp of a green lizard, a frequent motif in his work, with the option of a personalised note.
The stories available range from children’s stories about fairy tale forests, to horror stories in haunted manors and even a love story set on New Year’s Eve in 1999.
Mr Thomas said having a “day job” as a research assistant at Cardiff University had helped his writing. He felt no rush to start a project and often found it was better to wait until he “physically could not help writing”.
His latest novel looks at the trials and tribulations of being a female snooker player in 1980. His protagonist has autism and he wants to use the book to discuss how the condition presents in women and how helpful it could be in a sport such as snooker.
- The scrolls are available via the author’s Etsy shop.
