This year's Christmas feast of short stories, essays and poetry is mostly English cuisine, with a little dash of French and Middle English seasoning. Here you will find many old favourites, and some festive treats which may be new to you.

LibriVox’s 2007 Christmas Short Works Collection containing public domain short stories, essays, poems, and scripture passages recorded by a variety of LibriVox members. Section 09: A Cornish Christmas Play, a mummers' play, was read by gathered members of the UK LibriVox chapter (Sarah O'Connor, Graham Redman, Cori Samuel and Peter Yearsley.)

This multilingual Christmas Short Works Collection for 2010 contains public domain short stories, essays, poems and scripture passages in English, German and Portuguese.

This is a collection of public domain works either published in 1912, or written in 1912 and published before 1923. The accent is on non-fiction but a few short stories are included.

Here is a collection of strikingly different pieces by Flaubert: a prose poem in the voices of Death, Satan and Nero; the trials and apotheosis of a medieval saint; and the life of a selfless maid in 19th century France. Each exhibits the vigorous exactness, and the mixture of realism and romanticism, for which Flaubert is renowned.

Each week we read aloud a short story - sometimes we've written it ourselves, and sometimes it's from one of our favourite classic authors. Then we discuss our thoughts and give some critical analysis to help us (and you) become better writers. Music credits: s1 - www.purple-planet.com and s2 - The Right Direction by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com