About Us…

xpressenglish.com was established by a (now retired) Australian educator who for the last twelve years of his career taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at a leading Asian University. The website was originally developed as a teaching tool for these students, but has since been repurposed as a general reading resource suitable for all levels of reader. Our motivation stems from the fact that of the billions of people around the world with Internet access, many millions will not have the geographic access or financial resources to easily obtain English learning and recreational reading material.

The Internet has brought about many changes, one of which is the way we read for pleasure. Instead of settling down with a good book, more and more people are turning to mobile devices. And whether it is because of busier lifestyles, decreasing attention spans, or demands for a more social media-like experience, there is increasing interest in very short stories. Flash fiction (aka sudden fiction) is not new. It has been around for thousands of years (think Aesop), and some of the world’s best-known traditional authors such as Chekhov, Chopin, de Maupassant, Munro (Saki) and Porter (O. Henry) were writing flash stories before the term was even invented. The genre’s appeal in the modern world is that flash stories can provide an enjoyable reading experience in just a few minutes.

Our objective is to present a mix of flash fiction, short and selected longer stories that will appeal to a wide range of readers. To make the reading choice easier for visitors, we have classified our stories under four categories: “Quick Reads” – stories of 250-1,500 words that most people should be able to read in less than five minutes; Short Stories” – stories of 1,501 to 7,500 words; “Novelettes” – the next step up from short stories, of 7,501 to 17,500 words; and “Novellas” – a short collection of outstanding longer stories of up to around 40,000 words. Edgar Allen Poe defined a short story as a short prose narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal that could be read in a single session. Even the longest of our stories should take an average reader no more than two and a half hours. Enjoy!

Privacy…

It is xpressenglish.com‘s policy to respect visitor privacy. Like many websites, we use Internet management tools that collect non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available. Examples include the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Our purpose in collecting such information is to better understand how visitors use the website; it will never be released to the public or provided to a third party.

Personally-Identifying Information Provided by Visitors

In order to make our website as easy as possible to use for our stated purposes, we do not require visitors to log-in in order to access any of our resources or comment on a story. The only time that we gather potentially personally-identifying information is when visitors choose to interact with us through our contact or comment forms or by direct email. In this case visitors will be asked to provide a user name and email address. Additionally, the visitor’s IP address will be visible to us. We undertake that this information will never be rented, sold or disclosed to a third party other than in response to a subpoena, court order or other governmental request, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect our property or rights, third parties or the public at large.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. People who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers can set their browsers to refuse cookies, with the drawback that features of certain website pages may not function properly without them.

Please note that we DO NOTt place or use cookies to identify and track visitors. However, any ads appearing on our website may be delivered by advertising partners who do set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time you view an online advertisement and to compile information about you or others who use your computer. Among other things, this information allows ad networks to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies by our website only and does not cover the use of cookies by advertising partners or advertisers.

Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, we reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy from time to time, and in our sole discretion. We encourage visitors who are concerned about privacy to regularly check this page for changes. Your continued use of this website after any change in our Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.