Sunday 13 March 2011

Writing Buddies, 4 March 2011

The Southampton Writing Buddies met at The Art House Café on 4 March to share information and discuss writing matters.

Jacob is still working on his board game. He is writing a poem and also considering entering a short story he wrote a while ago, and put on line, into a competition. Penny advised him to look at the competition rules as they usually state that entries must not have been previously published, in any form. He mentioned a short story competition with THE POINT, Eastleigh. www.thepointeastleigh.co.uk

Penny mentioned that Martin Hodges of Poetry 24 is actively looking for poetry. http://poetry-24.blogspot.com/

Tessa is editing the third draft of the third book of her 'Dohlen' trilogy.

Laurel has written a short story and submitted it to the Write Space competition. She has written two poems for Moving Voices and is downloading details of competitions closing in March with a view to entering her work.

Jimmy has completed the first chapter of his new book. He has visited Waterstones regarding signings of his book, Growing up in Wartime Southampton: Someone Else’s Trousers and the book launch will be held at The Riverside Club, above St Deny's Rowing Club, Priory Road, St Deny's on Sunday 8 May, 2 – 5.00pm.

Elizabeth is working on her first assignment for The Writers Bureau and hopes to complete this by the next meeting.

Lisa's book The Terrible Zombie of Oz is being sold by Amazon all around the world and is also available through Barnes & Noble. She researched e book prices and it is being marketed at £3.50. Penny confirmed that Lisa's book will be put up on the Writing Buddies bookcase on the blog site. See www.createspace.com/

John has written two reviews and five poems. He performed two poems at Moving Voices and went to Freeway Poets in Bournemouth. He will be hosting an open mic at Petersfield.

Penny's book Voices of Southampton is now finished and with the publisher. She has been accepted into The Society of Authors. The magazines she was working, Carousel and The Bulletin on have now gone to press. Her current book, Haunted Southampton is no. 11 at Waterstones, Above Bar, Southampton, in their best-seller listing.

Penny will be launching Haunted Southampton on Sunday 13 March book launch for Haunted Southampton at The Station Pub, Bitterne, 3.00 – 5.00pm. .

On Wednesday 16 March Penny is hosting an evening of ghost stories at Waterstones, Above Bar starting at 7.00pm.

Penny was particularly pleased to receive a review for Haunted Southampton on Amazon. She is thinking of possibly writing another ghost book as there are plenty of stories to be investigated.

A general discussion followed covering various topics including the closures of bookshops and the increasing popularity of e books.

Laurel expressed her frustration at not being able to get her work published. Penny advised her to write directly to a publisher rather than trying to get an agent and also encouraged her to set up her own web site. Amanda Hocking was mentioned. She is a 26 year old American author having great success with her self published books. See www.authorsonshow.com

John suggested having a guest columnist on the Writing Buddies blog, perhaps commencing with Penny. If this is to be initiated the member would need to forward their piece to Penny and she would then put it up on the blog. The blog is quite high on the wiki league. Advertising on the site was also mentioned but was felt to be time consuming and generally members agreed against this.

The next Writing Buddies meeting will be on Friday 18 March at 2pm at The Art House Cafe, Above Bar, Southampton. Everyone is welcome.

Post written by Elizabeth Streatfield.